


Starry-Eyed

by Lapin



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Cheating, Dysfunctional Relationships, M/M, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:06:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1252165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lapin/pseuds/Lapin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Party (and yes, it gets capital letters) changes everything, for Ori. It turns him into that person he never wanted to be, turns him into that boy, the one who cheats on his boyfriend with the first blond who winks at him at a uni party. It turns him into that boy, the one who keeps cheating. </p><p>(Or: That university AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [victoriousscarf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoriousscarf/gifts).



> NEW THING

A hand slides across the small of his back, way too familiar to be a stranger, so Ori isn't surprised when he looks up and sees Fíli. “Buy you a drink?” 

“No,” Ori says, trying to move away from him and failing. The pub is too crowded, all students, and there's nowhere to go. 

“C'mon, just one. What's that going to hurt?” He says it right in Ori's ear, ostensibly so he can be heard over the noise, but his mouth touches the shell of Ori's ear, and Fíli smirks when he obviously feels Ori shiver. “Just one drink, Ori.” 

“No,” he repeats firmly, and this time manages to extract himself when a loud group of girls beside them move down a bit. “What are you even doing here?” 

“I'm not actually stalking you,” Fíli says, letting Ori move away. “I was here first. I just wanted a drink. What are you doing here?” 

“Your brother wanted me to come,” Ori answers, looking over his shoulder for Kíli. He's usually easy to spot in a crowd, especially with his hair down, which it usually is. Ori has seen what happens to the elastics Kíli tries to use to restrain it. “I thought you had a paper coming up? Shouldn't you be studying?”

“Why don't you help me?” Unlike his brother, Fíli's hair is always controlled. It's back right now, not even a wisp escaping. Ori has only ever seen it down a few times, but thinking about that makes his face hot, so he tries not to. “I could come over. I'll bring beer. Or we could go out after, grab dinner.” 

“After what?” Ori hisses, feeling Fíli's hand come back. 

“Studying,” Fíli replies innocently. His hand drops and there's suddenly a polite amount of space between them, just in time for Kíli to sidle up to Ori, throwing a friendly arm around him. Fíli must have seen him coming. 

“Aren't you supposed to be studying?” Kíli asks, letting Ori go to get the bartender's attention. “My god, what's Mum going to do if you're less than perfect for once? She might faint.” He gets shoved in the head for the comment, Fíli reaching around Ori to do it. 

His arm lingers across Ori's shoulders, and it makes Ori's stomach flip. He hates it.

Thankfully, Fíli has the mercy to only linger for a second, not long enough for Kíli to notice, or if he does, he doesn't say anything. It could be either with Kíli, though Ori is desperate for it to be the first one. The only thing worse than doing something wrong is someone else knowing. 

“Might be good for her,” Fíli says, low enough only Ori hears. 

The bartender finally notices them, and takes their orders. The brothers both get beer, no surprise there, and Ori gets a Coke. No surprise there either, though Kíli rolls his eyes. Fíli doesn't touch him again as they find a table, ending up squished in the corner when friends of Fíli's leave them theirs. He and Kíli do end up squishing him between them, Ori in the actual corner, which means he can't escape Fíli if he wants to. Which he probably will. 

He really wishes that was his only reaction. 

“I really do need help,” Fíli says to Ori, while Kíli whistles at a redhead sitting beside them. Ori half watches as she raises one eyebrow at Kíli, the corner of her mouth twitching, before pointedly looking back at her friends. Fíli notices too, and thumps the table to get Kíli's attention. “Oi, stop that, it's not nearly as cute as you think it is.”

“Says you,” Kíli scoffs. “Not like you're reeling them in.” 

Ori looks at the table. 

“Your funeral,” Fíli dismisses, and turns back to Ori, while Kíli occupies himself with the girl. He's determined to get her attention, and Ori doesn't doubt that he'll eventually get it, but it might only be to get slapped. It's happened before. In this pub. “I'm supposed to write a paper on a famous mathematician,” Fíli says to Ori. “Professor seems to think it'll help us appreciate our studies more. Or something. Don't know, wasn't really listening.” 

“Do you ever listen to anyone?” Ori's exasperated, but he's not annoyed. He wants to be, but it's difficult with Fíli. “Have you picked anyone?”

“Thought I'd do Descartes, but I think everyone else is,” Fíli replies, taking a swig of his beer. “You sure you don't want one? I don't mind paying.” 

Ori shakes his head. “No, I have reading to do.” And he knows he should stay quiet, shouldn't engage, but he does. “You could do it on Ada Lovelace.” 

“Who?”

“I know you know who she is,” Ori says, kicking at him under the table. Fíli smiles at him, making Ori's heart stutter far too much, and kicks him back, the pair of them tangling their legs and leaving them for a minute too long. A few minutes too long, as Fíli googles more mathematicians, Ori scolding him for not doing _any_ research at all, really, it's due in a _week_ . 

Their shoulders are touching when Kíli turns back, the redhead finally leaving. His eyes narrow, and Ori's stomach clenches. Ori can't look at either of them as he disentangles himself, squishing further into his corner. 

“I think she liked me,” Kíli says, thankfully not commenting. “She didn't slap me, at least.”

“Shame,” Fíli drawls. “The first time was great.” 

“Fuck you,” Kíli replies, making a rude gesture with the hand not holding his beer. “Did Mum say anything about the painting? Or the rum?” 

Ori doesn't know what he means, until Fíli says, “Me and Gimli replaced the rum. And if she's noticed the scratch, she hasn't said anything. You're a fucking idiot, by the way. What the fuck you were thinking?” 

He's talking about The Party. The one Fíli and Kíli threw with the rugby team at their family's house last month, where Ori met Fíli. Where Ori went upstairs with Fíli after too few beers to really blame it on alcohol. The Party, where he ended up sneaking out of Fíli's home-bedroom at four in the morning, and taking three buses before walking another five kilometres to get back to the campus where he had quietly fallen apart, still aware of his sleeping flatmates. 

Kíli is explaining, but when Ori stands up, he stops, frowning. “Ori?”

“Let me out,” he demands, Kíli standing so he can get past. 

“You all right?” 

It's Fíli asking, so Ori ignores it, because if he looks at Fíli right now, he's going to start crying or something equally humiliating. Oh god, they were just touching, _again_ , and Ori is a terrible person.

He pushes outside, into the cold air, and takes a deep breath. He's fine. He's fine. 

He'll maybe be fine again one day soon. 

His mobile buzzes suddenly in his pocket, startling him. It's worse when he checks it, and sees Jacob's name.

 _Missing you <3_

He thinks he might be sick.

*

The first week of uni is not nearly as bad as Ori thought it would be. Nori had half convinced him it would be no different than home, but Ori is pleased to find out his brother was wrong, yet again. University is pleasant, full of nice people carrying lots of books and eager about classes. His room is a bit smaller than the one at home, but his flatmates are quiet and don't talk to him much.

He Skypes with Jacob twice in the first week, tells him about the classes he's going to be taking for sure, the reading he's been doing to prepare himself, and all the different parts of the campus he wants to sit and sketch at. It's the same things he told Dori, only Jacob tells him about their village friends, and what everyone is up to at home, the ones who stayed home at least. Jillian has a job in a posh dress shop, Finn is still at his apprenticeship, and Rani is working at the salon still, only now she's finally cutting hair. Dori would rather Ori not talk to them at all any more, he knows. 

Nori sends him an e-mail, and a card with more money than Ori feels comfortable accepting stuffed within. He doesn't send it back though, if only because Ori doubts he's still at the same address. In any case, the money will help. 

With more desperation than hope, he applies for jobs within walking distance of the campus, not trusting the buses for something so important. He predictably receives nothing but rejection, but he keeps trying anyway. He hates the idea of having to depend on Dori for anything now that he's away, and Nori likely knew that when he sent so much money. 

It really is an obscene amount, and sometimes Ori looks at all the notes and wonders what in the world he'll do with it all, though practically he knows how useful it is. He uses it to pay his mobile so Dori doesn't have to, and buy what he needs to cook and clean, plus a new blanket and pillows, and notebooks and pens and pencils and a terribly indulgent new hardback sketchbook. 

He's had his own bank account since he was old enough, and he deposits it all, not quite trusting his new flatmates. The influence of both his brothers, unfortunately or fortunately. 

It's still a bit heady to see all that money in the account when he checks it. He's been saving for ages, wanting to be as independent as possible, but Nori's contribution is still slightly overwhelming. He _really_ doesn't want to think about how Nori got the money. That's not unusual though. Neither he or Dori like to think about how Nori gets money these days.

He's been in housing for a full week before the fourth boy finally shows up. His name is Kíli, and he swears more coming in the door than Ori has in half his adolescence. He also thumps the wall something awful with his bag and his violin case when he comes in, and somehow makes even more noise when he's told which room will be his, throwing his case on the desk, and his duffel bag on the bed hard enough it hits the wall. Ori will be the one sharing a bathroom with Kíli, and that alone seems frightening with how long Kíli's hair is and how much he bangs things. 

“Can I borrow your toothpaste?” Kíli asks on the first morning, poking his head in through Ori's door with only a knock for warning. 

Ori finishes pulling his jumper over his head, and nods, unsure of if he has another option. He can't very well say _no_ , and have him walking around with bad breath. 

“Cheers,” Kíli says, smiling brightly. He ducks back into the bathroom, not shutting the door. Ori hears the water running, and Kíli cleaning his teeth before he spits and washes out the sink. That's one worry averted then. He leans back in once he's finished, his smile still wide. “Ori, right? I'm Kíli. In case you forgot. This your first year? It's mine.” Ori nods again, not sure what to say. Kíli hardly pauses for an answer before he asks, “I'm studying art history. What about you?” 

He sucks in his bottom lip, thinking. “Linguistics.” It's mostly the case, so it's a good enough answer. No one ever likes hearing the whole thing, not even Dori. 

“Are you from here?” Kíli asks, raking his hands through his hair, like that's going to make it look more orderly. It doesn't seem to do much at all, from what Ori can tell. 

He remembers the question, and shakes his head. 

“I am,” Kíli continues. “Family house is on the other side of they city. My mum and my uncle live there, but me, no, I want some independence, you know?” He's walking back into his side while talking, Ori following but unsure of how far he's allowed. He ends up just hovering in the door that connects the bathroom to Kíli's bedroom, his fingers twisting in his too-long sleeves. “My brother gets a studio, the prick, just 'cause he's an engineering student, and Mum and Uncle think he 'needs his space' to study. He's second year. Complete git, didn't even help me move in, you notice.” It seems like all Ori has to do is look like he's listening, and Kíli will keep talking. He doesn't mind, so he stays in the doorway, following Kíli with his eyes as he paces around the room. 

He's tall, Ori sees, now that they're both standing. Not that it takes much to be taller than Ori, but Kíli is genuinely tall. 

“He's a complete poseur anyway,” he still seems to be talking about his brother, whoever that is. “He's only doing engineering to make our mum happy, you know? But _I'm_ the idiot for picking something I actually want to do.” He attempts to finger-comb his hair again, then pulls a blue knit hat over his head, tucking most of his hair in it. “You hungry? I'm going down to the canteen. I haven't bought any groceries. Fíli, that's my brother, he was supposed to take me to the shops, Mum told him he had to, but he told me to sod off. Arsehole.” 

Ori nods once Kíli finally stops talking. “Let me get my things,” he says. He's not sure it's possible to say no, in any case. Kíli probably wouldn't hear it. 

The whole way to the canteen, Kíli talks, about everything. His brother (Ori has never heard one person insulted so much in one conversation), his mother and uncle, who are apparently also both engineers at a firm Ori has never heard of but seems to be a big deal, and also both apparently overbearing and controlling and lots of other words Ori's not comfortable hearing about two adults he doesn't actually know.

He talks about food once they get to the canteen, mainly about how he's never been allowed to have most of what they serve, and how he's going to eat two bowls a day of some cereal that Ori thinks might be more sugar than actual food. 

“Mum and Uncle Thorin never let me have this,” he says for the third time. His table manners are somewhat atrocious. 

“How come?” he asks, because Kíli's mouth is full. He at least keeps his mouth closed when he chews. 

“Oh, I've got ADHD.” 

Ori's eyes widen. “Should you be eating that?”

“No,” Kíli says, shrugging. “I'll probably be pretty moody later, and learn my lesson. I just want to have the choice, you know? Be allowed to make a mistake. My mum though, she just _hovers_ , and so does my uncle. Drives me mad. Bet your mum does the same though, right?” 

Ori looks at the table, at his tea and toast. It's not very good tea. “No.” He can see Kíli still on the edge of his vision, and he knows his tone gave him away. He's never been very good at deflecting, not like Dori and Nori. He wishes he was, because then he wouldn't have to talk about it ever again. 

“I'm sorry.” Kíli lets his spoon drop in his bowl, some milk splashing up on the table. “I talk a lot. I don't usually think, either.” Where the awkward silence usually goes in this conversation though, Kíli asks, “Is she dead?” When Ori nods, he says, “My dad is too. I was sixteen. My brother was seventeen. How old were you?” 

He's never met anyone else with a dead parent, and it surprises him enough to look up at Kíli, his hands still twisted in his sleeves. “Fourteen.” He doesn't explain any further, and Kíli doesn't press. Maybe it's because he doesn't, Ori adds, “My father died when I was seven.” He can't bring himself to elaborate there either, and Kíli again keeps whatever curiousity he might have to himself. 

“So are you on your own?” 

“I have two older brothers,” Ori says, shrugging. “My eldest brother and my sister-in-law took care of me.” 

“What about the other one?” 

Ori shrugs again. That's another thing he doesn't want to talk about. 

For all Kíli seems to be lacking in manners, he drops that too without argument. He changes the subject even, asking Ori the much safer, “So where are you from?” 

“Exeter.” It's close enough, though not quite. It usually helps people place it on the map if Ori just names somewhere they've actually possibly heard of. 

“What, really? That's ages away! You're never going to get any visitors. Or is that the point?” He grins, and kicks Ori's ankle under the table, like they're friends. “You got a girl waiting for you or something?” 

“A boy,” Ori manages, looking down at his hands before glancing up at Kíli. His expression is completely unchanged, surprisingly. 

“So what, he's still in school or something?” He has food in his mouth again, this time Ori's apple. 

“No, we were the same year,” he says, tearing his toast into pieces out of habit. “He's not going to university. His dad is an electrician. Probably the better choice, really.” Once his toast is in manageable pieces, he can eat it without feeling his stomach tighten up, making sure to scoot his plate out of Kíli's grasp when he starts eyeing it. “We've been together for over three years.”

Kíli nods, taking another bite of Ori's apple. “And now you're going to school, what, six hours away?”

It can be seven or eight or more depending on the trains, actually, but that's beside the point. The point being none of Kíli's business. They're not _really_ friends, after all, and it's better to keep himself to himself until he knows Kíli better. They have to live with each other for the whole school year. He doesn't want Kíli knowing anything more than he should if he turns out to be a manipulative arsehole. 

That said, he's not all that sure Kíli could spell 'manipulative', much less be manipulative. But his brothers have taught him paranoia, if nothing else. 

“We Skype,” Ori says, drinking his tea. It's _really_ not good tea. “Do you have someone?”

He scoffs, now halfway through Ori's apple. “I'm shit at relationships. I'm not even joking. You could give me my soul mate, and I would bollocks it up in a week. Or less.” He tips back on two legs in the chair, balancing himself on the table with his knee. “I had a girlfriend once, for like, two months. That's pretty much it for me.” He sighs through his teeth. “I am so the unfavourite.” 

“What, your brother is married?” Ori's getting the impression Kíli compares himself to his older brother a lot. “Or do you have more siblings?”

“No, it's just Fíli and me. And no on the other thing too. He would never be so _irresponsible_ ,” Kíli says the last word with quite a bit of dramatic flair, rolling his eyes. “He's sort of like you though, you know? Has relationships, people he brings home.” He shrugs, suddenly self-conscious. “I always fuck up.” 

“I'm sure that's not true,” Ori mumbles, tugging on his knit scarf. Dori had made it for him before he left, a tighter knit than he's ever needed before. He'd been worried about Ori being in the northern climate, that he'd catch cold. He probably will, even with the scarf. Ori always gets sick. 

His sister in law has always blamed his mother. She's probably not wrong. Being born two months early has never done him any favours. 

“I like you,” Kíli announces like a revelation. “You and me, we're friends.” 

Ori has no idea what to say to that. So he drinks the last of his tea. 

Over the next few weeks, Kíli not only proves to be a friend, but a surprisingly good one. He's pushy and loud to the point of annoying, but he drags Ori out of his room and down to the pub for pub quizzes, where it turns out he has a spectacular knowledge of random trivia, out to the local art shows where Ori meets people, and stays by his side in the shops so he doesn't have to feel anxious when he spends too long debating the vegetables. Ori cooks for him in turn, and finds out Kíli something of a bottomless pit who will eat literally anything, even things that get burned by accident. He helps Kíli with his homework too, when he finds out Kíli not only has ADHD, he's somewhat dyslexic as well.

“Why did you choose art history?” he asks, four weeks into the semester, as he carefully reads the text Kíli is supposed to have done by next week aloud. “If you struggle so much?” 

“Because I like it,” Kíli replies, shrugging. “Repeat that last bit.” When Ori does, Kíli says it back, and Ori nods. Kíli's not stupid, far from it from what Ori can tell, but he apparently does better if he hears the words. “Do you really want to know?” 

Ori nods.

“I can't read very well. You know that. And I'm not too good at anything else. But images, I get those. I can look at something, and see what they were trying to say.” He huffs, his arms crossed under his head on the bed. “I don't always know the words, but I understand art. Sometimes it's not always what everyone else thinks, but they're usually snobs anyway.”

“That's rude,” Ori says automatically, without venom. 

“Because you don't feel the same?” Kíli teases. “Don't pretend you don't think half those old bastards are making shit up. No, those people, they're not like us.” Ori stays quiet for too long, because what does Kíli know? He grew up with money, and all that it brings, and he and Ori aren't really much alike at all, are they? 

_Are_ they?

“So how come you didn't have tutors or anything? For this?” Ori asks, mildly curious now. He's wondered, ever since Kíli asked in that first week of them knowing one another. “Didn't they show you stuff?” 

Kíli shrugs on the bed. “Things were different, when I was little. Mum and Uncle were way in debt, and Dad wasn't helping much. They got work at the firm when I was...what...maybe twelve? And they always thought I just needed to work harder, you know?” He shakes his fist, deepening his voice on the _work harder_ , clearly mocking them. “Uncle and Mum, they think I'm just lazy half the time. Can't be perfect -”

“Okay, just stop,” Ori says, holding up a hand. “This thing you do, where you compare yourself to your brother. You sound like my brother, Nori, and I just...” Because it was never _fair_. Nori never took responsibility for his mistakes, never. And he _always_ blamed Dori for making him look bad, like it was Dori's fault he found a trade and settled down, like it was Dori's fault that Nori had been locked up so much. “There's nothing wrong with working hard.”

“There's something wrong with saying it when you're asking a person to do something they _can't_ ,” Kíli says, sitting up on his elbows. “Look, if you don't want to help me -”

“I do,” Ori insists, smoothing the page down. “I get it, all right? Dyslexia, ADHD. I get that. But this thing, where you keep acting like even if you do really well at these classes, your family still won't be happy, that's just...that can't be true. And even if it is, it's not your brother's fault.” 

“God, even you're taking his side,” Kíli huffs.

“I'm not.” That's unfair, really, and Ori won't take it. “I don't know him. You're my friend, I'm on your side, all right?” 

“So you admit we're friends?” Kíli grins cheekily, and Ori feels played. “Sorry. It's not his fault, I know. I just get pissed off.” He settles back on the bed. “Right, back to reading. We were on the Etruscans.” It's too easy, and it must look like it, because Kíli huffs noisily and says, “Christ, all right, Ori, listen. I'm not going to ask. I'm never going to ask. Even if it turns out your brother is like, some contract killer for the mob, I am never going to ask. I get it, all right?” Ori highly doubts that, and that must show too, because Kíli laughs, and says, “Seriously, if you knew, you wouldn't doubt me. I know how to mind my own business.”

Ori can't look at him, just his own hands, tugging at his sleeves over the textbook, black print against stark white, a picture of a statue Ori can't remember the name of taking up a quarter of the page. 

“You want to go to a party?” Kíli asks, changing the subject. He always does when Ori starts twisting his sleeves, and Ori is grateful for it. 

“What kind of party?”


	2. Chapter 2

“He sounds like an idiot,” Jacob says. 

On his side of the computer, Ori frowns, drawing his knees up into his chair. “No, he's really not. Just...different. I like him.” 

“Really?” Jacob raises an eyebrow. “Doesn't he play rugby?” 

“It's different here,” Ori argues, picking at his nails. He knows what Jacob means. The rugby players were the worst for bullying Ori back home, though it was never as bad as Jacob always makes it out to be, and they usually apologised if they actually managed to damage a book or one of Ori's sketches. “No one is here to play sport, they're here to learn. And it's fun to watch, when they're not being serious.” 

“If you say so,” Jacob says, dismissing him. It makes Ori frown, and Jacob sighs. “I'm being mean, aren't I?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry. I'm glad you're making friends. I was worried you would shut yourself up in your room when you weren't in class.” He grins, and shrugs. “'Course, I was sort of hoping that would happen, because then maybe you'd see sense and come home.” 

Ori doesn't say anything to that. He doesn't want to fight. “Have you seen Nori around? Dori says he's home, but he's working at The Crown, so they're on different schedules.” Dori and Elsa are usually getting up to go to the bakery when Nori is getting in from his shift at the the pub, and he's normally starting his shift when Dori and Elsa are coming in the door. They're all just glad he's working at an actual job at home, so he knows Dori and Elsa won't push. 

“Yeah, I did see him. He pretended he didn't know me. Again.” 

“That's because he hates you,” Ori replies, hiding his smile. It drives Jacob mad, how Nori teases him, but it makes Ori laugh. Nori so rarely teases any more, not since this last time in prison. He'll take Jacob getting needled just to see his brother acting normal again. “You're dating his little brother.” 

“Am I?” Jacob asks. “When are you coming home for a visit? I want to actually see you. Touch you.” 

Ori's face heats up a little, and he keeps his thoughts to himself on that subject. Even through a screen, Jacob can embarrass him. “Probably at Christmas.” It's too much money otherwise. “I should go. I have reading to do.” 

No one would ever believe Ori could lie so convincingly, but that's to his advantage. Jacob just smiles. “All right. Suppose you might as well make the most of it, as long as you're there.” That certainly prickles at Ori in the worst way, and the follow up of, “Love you,” doesn't soothe it at all. 

“You too,” Ori replies, and disconnects them. 

Somehow, things are easier like this. It shouldn't be, he knows, but it is. With distance, he feels closer to Jacob again, more like how they were before, without the constant pressure from him about moving in together, being together all the time, and all the...all the other things. 

He wouldn't like Ori going to a party without him, but what he doesn't know won't hurt anything. 

“You ready to go?” Kíli asks, leaning in the door.

“Yes,” Ori answers, standing up. “So what kind of party is this?”

Kíli makes an odd face, and doesn't answer. It should be suspicious, if only because Kíli isn't talking for once.

“Kíli, what kind of party is this?” Ori asks again an hour later, frantically trying to stay by Kíli's side. It had been a walk, two buses, and a taxi that Ori hadn't had much choice but to let Kíli pay for before they started up the walk of a very nice, very loud and well-lit house full of people. Loud people. Loud, pushy, drunk people. “This is _your_ house?” If his family was once in debt, they certainly aren't now. Ori's whole house could fit in it, at least three times. 

“It's ancient, it's freezing in winter, and the roof leaks over there,” he says, pointing at the left corner. “Don't be too impressed. You can't even get Internet in some of the rooms because they're stone. Biggest pain in the arse.” 

“I'm sure,” Ori replies, not meaning it in the slightest. “Who are all these people?” 

“Uh, well, a few of them are the kids of friends of my Mum and Uncle, like, uh, Terrin there, he's my Uncle Balin's son,” the boy in question, taller than Kíli with biceps thicker than Ori's neck and a mohawk, nods at Kíli, waving his cigarette, “Only he's not really my uncle, we just call him that. And a lot of them are just from the neighbourhood, people I grew up with, went to school with, played rugby and football with. And a lot of Fíli's friends are here, mostly lads from the school's rugby team. Fíli likes any sport where he gets to hit people, but so do I. We're both pretty good at that. Hard heads, you know?” He knocks his own skull, grinning, and starts to make his way through the people in the foyer. 

The inside of the house is nice too, in that old way that Ori's always liked. He suspects there's usually more furniture and a rug, but someone, probably Kíli's brother, has thought to put away anything that might be fragile. The music is loud, but not so loud no one can talk, and everyone seems to have a drink, but no one looks like they're really drunk. That makes Ori uncurl a little, though he stays plastered to Kíli's side, not that Kíli seems to mind. 

“So, your brother is here?” Ori's been curious about this mysterious, perfect older brother, if only because he thinks Kíli is likely exaggerating and he wants to know by how much. “Fíli?”

“Uh, somewhere,” Kíli says, shrugging. “Knowing him, he's off being unsocial and weird.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Fíli is weird sometimes, is all.” He takes Ori by the elbow, and steers him into the empty kitchen. “All right, you wait here. I'm going to find the drinks, and I'll bring you something. And possibly a rugby player to flirt with you all night.” 

“I have a boyfriend,” Ori reminds him, palming his mobile in his pocket. The last thing he wants is to be pawed at again. Jacob's already annoyed him tonight. 

“And I have a mate who likes artists, and is right here at this party, whereas your boyfriend is in Exeter,” Kíli points out, waggling his eyebrows. “Now stay, I'll be back in a few minutes.” 

Ori gives in and nods, not eager to go back out. He's never been to a party like this, was never invited in school. He never really wanted to go to one either. Too many people, too much noise. At least here in the kitchen, it's quiet. 

He texts Jacob while he waits, not expecting Kíli to come back for at least ten minutes. There's no reply, but he doesn't expect one on short notice, and besides there's not much to say. If he tells Jacob he's at a party, he'll get upset at Ori for both lying and going to one in the first place. If he tells Jacob he's with Kíli at a party, he'll really get upset. Every time they talk about him, it goes right back to their argument tonight. He thinks Kíli sounds obnoxious, and it's hard to convey Kíli's oddly charming way of being obnoxious through text or Skype. Besides that, this isn't the first time he's gotten after Ori to come home for a visit, and Ori still doesn't know how to say how much he's enjoying uni without offending him. Jacob hadn't wanted him to go so far away in the first place, and he's still angry with Ori over it. 

Instead, Ori again says he's studying. 

After that, he pokes around, until he finds a pen and a napkin, where he idly sketches a dragon breathing fire over a castle, leaning over the counter. Kíli will be back soon, he's sure, but until then, he entertains himself. 

“That's good,” a voice says from over his shoulder, and Ori all but jumps out of his skin.

Behind him, there's now a tall blond boy, his hair pulled back in a tight queue, looking down at Ori's doodle with genuine interest. “Christ, were you just messing around? I couldn't do that if I tried.” 

He's...

Ori doesn't have words, and he doesn't understand that. But this boy is looking at him, his eyebrows raised, and Ori just can't think. When the boy smiles, Ori forgets he ever had thoughts at all. 

He's very handsome, this boy, his eyes bright with intelligence and humour, the lines around his mouth showing how much he must smile. Very tall too, taller than Ori by at least half a head. 

“What are you doing in here?” the other boy asks, quirking one eyebrow. He has a scar through it, faint, but still noticeable. 

“Kíli told me to wait here,” Ori answers, wondering why he can't seem to breathe. He feels absolutely ridiculous, but the rest of his brain can't seem to get the message. 

“You know my brother?” 

It takes Ori just a second before he says, “Oh, you're Fíli.” Now that he knows, he sees they have the same nose. 

“He's talked about me?” Fíli seems amused, half-laughing as he takes a swig of his beer. “Nothing good, I assume.”

“No, not really,” Ori confirms, shaking his head. He's smiling too. 

His mobile vibrates in his pocket. He ignores it. It would be rude to check it. 

“Yeah, well, I've thrashed him a lot over the years.” Fíli shrugs, and that's like Kíli too, the easy carelessness of the gesture. “What's your name?”

“Ori.” 

He likes the way the smile slowly creeps up on Fíli's face, the way the left side rises higher than the right. “Ori,” he repeats, and Ori likes the way his name sounds in Fíli's voice. “And you already know my name.”

His mobile vibrates again. 

“You an art student?” 

“No,” Ori shakes his head in answer. “I'm studying linguistics. Language.” 

“Oh? How?” 

No one has ever asked that.

“It's boring,” Ori excuses, looking down at the tiles on the floor. “It's really boring.”

“Try me,” Fíli challenges. “I'm smarter than I look. Smarter than Kíli, at any rate. Not that that's hard...” It makes Ori laugh. It shouldn't. “So come on then,” Fíli cajoles, clucking Ori under the chin so he has to look up at Fíli again, at his mouth and his eyes and his smile. “Tell me. How?”

Ori can hardly breathe. But still, he says, “I want to interpret books. Not translate. Because see, translating is just switching the words, but interpreting is finding the meaning and conveying it. It's not the same thing.” It's not, and it's really what Ori wants to do, but no one has ever understood what he means. Even Jacob had just listened, like a good boyfriend, but not comprehending. “Sorry.” Because it's boring. 

“So you mean like, changing the phrases and stuff?” Fíli asks, tilting his head. He has a hand on the counter now, two inches from Ori's hip. “See, this is why I study engineering. Maths and science are the same in any language. They're universal.” 

“No,” Ori disagrees, and gets a frown in response. “Art is universal. Music is universal. Even deaf people like the vibrations of music. Remote tribes in unexplored jungles and mountains have music. Music is the language we all know, not maths.”

Fíli grins. “I could prove you wrong.” 

“I doubt it.” He hasn't any idea where his tone comes from, but there it is. “Music makes us feel things. Math might be the same, but it's just numbers.” 

“Oh, I see how it is,” Fíli says, raising his bottle. “You're one of _those_ artists. You don't think there's any beauty in numbers, in physics. Think it's all just cold logic and formulas.” 

He has long fingers, Ori observes, like Kíli, except his nails are clean. “Isn't that the point? Logic?” 

“In a way, yes,” Fíli agrees, but whatever he's about to add is cut off when the kitchen door swings open again, and Kíli appears, two beers in hand. When he sees Fíli, he grins, even as Fíli says, “For chrissakes, Kíli, stop slamming that door already.” 

“Yes, Mum,” Kíli mocks, handing Ori his beer. “Look at you, you're actually talking to someone.” He means Ori, who only shrugs, opening his beer on the counter without thinking, then turning red when he realizes what he's done.

“Oh, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have done that, I'm sorry.” Oh, he's ridiculous. This isn't his house, this is theirs, and what if he scratches the stone somehow? 

“Why?” Fíli asks. “Our mum does it all the time. She was the one who taught us how.” To prove it, Kíli pops his own open on the counter as well. He smiles at Ori, and reaches out, covering Ori's hand with his, stopping Ori from twisting his sleeves up. 

“Hey, calm down, all right?” 

“Sorry,” Ori apologises again, because now he's being inconvenient. “I've never been in a house this nice.” 

“The roof leaks,” Fíli says, finishing his beer and tossing in the bin that must be for recycling. “And you can't get WiFi in most of the first storey.” 

“I already told him that,” Kíli says, half-whining. “So are we going to have time to clean up?” 

“No, I let you plan a party Mum and Uncle would find out about,” Fíli drawls, and despite himself, Ori half-laughs. He hears it, and grins at Ori even though he's talking to Kíli. “No, they'll be back on Monday. Plenty of time to get this sorted. Terrin and the rest will help.” 

“Like they helped after my birthday?” Kíli asks, raising an eyebrow. “Suppose if you tell them to, they will.”

“Christ, Kíli, go on.” Fíli looks frustrated, the scar through his eyebrow puckering when he frowns. “I'm not drunk enough to deal with you.” 

Now Ori feels uncomfortable, with Fíli's hand again just an inch from his hip on the counter, and he realises how close Fíli has come again. He's Kíli's friend, really.

“Whatever,” Kíli says, rolling his eyes. “Ori, come on, I want to introduce you to someone.” 

“We were talking,” Fíli insists, and something Ori can't understand passes between the pair of them. “Weren't we?” this he asks Ori, who nods. It's not like he wants to go back out into that crowd. There's far too many people, too much noise and fuss. Ori would rather spend the night in the back garden. 

Kíli looks at Ori, tilting his head to the side in question. “You want to stay in here?”

“There's a lot of people,” Ori says, feeling stupid for it. Fíli will likely get bored with their conversation in another five minutes, and then Ori will be forced to seek Kíli out alone in the crowd. He really would rather spend the night in the garden than that. “I'll find you.” It might be a lie, probably is. Might not be, though. So it's okay. 

“All right,” Kíli agrees good-naturedly. “You can come sleep in my room tonight. I've got a big enough bed.” He waves before Ori can respond, disappearing back through the swinging door. 

There's barely a minute after Kíli is gone before Fíli put his other hand on the counter, effectively caging Ori in. It's an odd feeling, having nothing else in front of or beside him but Fíli, Fíli's cologne now obvious, the rise and fall of his chest apparent. Odd. 

Not unpleasant.

“So, maths and music,” Fíli says, his voice lower now. “Let me prove you wrong.”

Fíli is very close now, to the point Ori can see the texture of his shirt, smell the detergent that's been used, sharp and soapy, combined with the cologne or aftershave that Fíli's wearing. Something like sandalwood, maybe. They're not anything different from what a thousand other boys are likely wearing, but Ori still wants to lean forward, inhale deeper. 

“Okay.”

Before they go upstairs, Fíli grabs a bottle out of the fridge, soda, and two glasses out of a cabinet. Ori follows him, up a set of stairs behind a door in a little hall off to the side, maybe a servants' staircase a long time ago, and they end up in a wide hallway with dark wood floors and little decoration. Maybe their family just doesn't like odds and ends everywhere, like Ori's family. 

The second door is Fíli's room, apparently, and in there, he produces a bottle of vodka, nicer than Ori could justify buying. He gives them both too much before adding the soda, and handing Ori a glass. “It's a party,” he says, shrugging. “Might as well indulge.” 

Ori shrugs, even as Fíli shuts the door. And turns the lock. 

He takes a very long sip of the drink instead, cringing over the taste of the vodka.

“All right, look at this,” Fíli says, leaning over a laptop. “This is something called fractal music.” Suddenly, there's music, not like the stuff playing downstairs. Almost like classical, or jazz. “Algorithmic composition, if you want to be really correct. It's when you use maths to make music, without any humans.”

Ori comes closer, his drink in both hands, listening more carefully. There's a pattern to the sound. “It's strange,” he says.

“A bit, yeah,” Fíli says, standing straight. “But not bad. Maths are everywhere, you see, in everything you do. You can make music with a mathematical formula, with anything from models to just random data. And it can sound good.”

“But it's not _music_ ,” Ori argues, shaking his head. “It's just a computer talking. There's no passion, no thought or backstory -”

“And there's so much thought behind what's on the radio?” Fíli is smiling again, his drink already half-empty. Ori tries to catch up, drinking more. This isn't nearly enough to make him drunk, but it will make everything a bit softer, his thoughts easier to articulate. “I'm just making a point. All music, it's just maths, you know? Just a formula of rises and falls, choruses and bridges -”

“No!” Ori doesn't believe that for a second, and he'll argue it 'til he dies. “Music is emotion, sharing feeling. Have you ever heard a piece, and it just made your heart hurt, until you couldn't breathe from it? And it's so hard to listen to it, because it's too much, it is...” He looks over Fíli's shoulder, and asks, “Is that a lava lamp?”

Fíli cranes his head back to look at the lamp in question. “Yeah. Had it for awhile.” He moves away from Ori and turn it on, pulling his hair out of the elastic as he stands straight. “I made it. Was a science project. Always had to show all the other kids up.”

Ori laughs, which he'll blame on the vodka even though it's too soon for it to be bothering him. When Fíli raises an eyebrow, the one with the scar, Ori has to explain, says, “Kíli says you're a sell-out, but you really like maths and science, don't you?” 

“Kíli is a fucking idiot,” he answers, coming back to Ori. The room is very dark, with just his desk lamp and the lava lamp. “I don't love engineering in spite of loving music, I love them for the same reason. Because they both make _sense_. Because when I play music, I _feel_ it, I feel it in my bones, and I when I design a machine, make something that works, I'm using that same thing to make something sold. Music is a feeling, a thought. A machine is something you can touch,” and he's so close, close enough Ori puts his drink down on the desk, close enough he can feel Fíli breathe. “But it's all the same, for me. Maths is how I make music solid.” 

“Language is how I make people real,” Ori replies, meeting his eyes. “People like you, you read them, their books, and you're bored. Don't lie you are,” but Fíli doesn't lie, just waits, and no one has ever done that. “But those books, they were a person. Someone who woke up every morning, and had their breakfast, and recorded all these things that were happening, whether in real life or in their own head. And I want them to _last_. They wrote these words down, they tried to make other people feel what they felt, and I just want everyone to know them. Their thoughts. Because then they're not really dead, see? They're still here.”

“And do you think Ada Lovelace isn't still here, because her words were numbers?” Fíli asks, and Ori can see how deep the scar in his eyebrow is. There's no hair there at all. It must be old. “That no one remembers Newton, because his thoughts were physics and laws, not poetry?”

“...I don't know.” Because he's never thought of it that way. 

“Math is just...it's another language. A universal language. And so is science, because see, literature and poetry and art, all of that shows who we are as individuals, but science and maths, that's a part of all of us. It looks cold at first, but it's _not_ ,” he emphasizes, and Ori notes the lines in his face, the brightness in his eyes, and the way his own heart flutters against his breastbone. “Science is our heartbeat, our breath, our minds. Maths and science are how we make our art real. How we build things like the Tower Bridge, like Notre Dame. Art is just another way of writing a formula.”

“You think maths built Notre Dame?” Ori won't take that lying down, not until Fíli says: “I think physics and knowledge built that damn cathedral. People who saw all those images in their head and knew how to make them real.”

“But they're numbers,” Ori says.

“They're stones and glass and paint,” Fíli says.

“Do you think that's what those artists were thinking of?” Ori asks, and it comes out like teasing. “Numbers? Or were they thinking about beauty, and their god, and how to show it? Colours and love? You're right, maths and science made those things happen, but they don't explain the images, the loveliness. That's words, and art.”

“You're determined to argue with me,” Fíli laughs, not at all offended from what Ori can tell. “You think I'm right, and you're still arguing!”

“Because you're dismissing the human factor! You're assuming logic and reasoning are such a big part of art, when they're not! Not always, at least. Sometimes, you just want to throw paint a canvas because you're upset, and you pick black and red because you're angry, and everyone who looks at it, they see how angry you were, because they felt like that too once, and that has no maths.”

“But random -”

Ori puts two fingers over Fíli's mouth, quieting him. “No. No, I'll admit, maths and science come into play with buildings and the like, but sometimes things are just happy or sad or angry, and they have nothing to do with either of those things. Writing especially. Writing is us, recording our minds, fiction or non-fiction. Because see, those people who write other worlds, or their own worlds, they're writing down what they know is real, even if it's not really real. That has nothing to do with maths and science.”,

Fíli looks down at him, a smile quirking at the corners of his mouth. “So Harry Potter is real?”

“To J.K., he is.” Ori knows that, deep down. “He's a real little boy, who grows up to defeat the Dark Lord. In her mind, he's a person. Just like Elizabeth and Anne were for Jane Austen. Or Captain Nemo, for Verne. They're real.”

The vodka has hit his system, and he feels funny now. Loose-limbed, and impulsive. 

He closes his eyes when Fíli leans down and kisses him.

After a second, he turns his face, and Fíli asks, “Sorry, did I get the wrong end of this?”

And here is the deepest secret no one knows; Ori has never liked being kissed. It's something Jacob does, like wrapping an arm around Ori, like having sex, that Ori puts up with because Jacob likes it. Here is another secret; Ori has always thought there was something horribly wrong with him, for being bored during kissing, during sex, and he's never told a single soul. 

“No,” he says, tilting his face up again. “You didn't.”

And here is a secret to lock away inside his heart; When Fíli kisses him, he's not bored. He wants Fíli to keep kissing him, Ori's own hands coming up to frame Fíli's face as Fíli's find Ori's waist. Ori's heart can't seem to find a rhythm, and his stomach has knotted itself up beyond recognition, but god, if Fíli stops kissing him, he doesn't know what he'll do. 

Fíli's ears are pierced, he feels in his exploration. 

He can't breathe at all when Fíli's mouth moves lower, to line of Ori's jaw, and then his neck. Jacob has kissed here, and Ori has only ever looked at the ceiling, hoped he would get bored. 

Now, his fingers thread through Fíli's loose hair, and a sound fights its way out of his mouth. Fíli is hard in his jeans, pressed against Ori, and that's never made Ori feel like this, feel heated in his chest and his belly and his thighs, never made him want to push back against it, his own cock hard. “Oh,” he exhales, without knowing why, and Fíli's hands find Ori's thighs, his fingers digging in as he yanks Ori closer, settling himself between them. “ _Oh_ ,” he sighs, his hips jerking up to grind against Fíli.

“Christ,” Fíli swears, thrusting against Ori, the desk digging into Ori's arse.

Ori reaches behind himself blindly, turns the desk lamp off, as the music changes to something else, some song Ori almost recognizes. Fíli meanwhile, yanks his own shirt off, separating their mouths, so Ori can look at him, the blue glow of the lava lamp highlighting the muscle in his chest, the dark hair on it, darker than the hair on his head. 

He pulls Fíli back in, their breathing loud, even through the music. Fíli is warm, his skin giving under Ori's fingers before they hit muscle, and there's the bed, against Ori's knees. There's Fíli, pushing him back, Ori crawling backwards so Fíli can join him, finding Fíli's belt buckle in the dim light. Fíli getting off the bed, getting Ori's shoes off, his trousers next, Fíli's own trousers hitting the floor.

Ori still has his shirt on. 

Fíli tugs on it, and they part so Ori can get it off.

Sex has always been this strange compulsion, this thing that happens when Jacob climbs on top of him in bed. An orgasm was a goal, so Jacob would get off him.

He pulls Fíli down, Fíli's weight welcome, parts his legs for Fíli to settle between them. 

The room is dim, the music still playing, now a song Ori half-knows.

“Can I fuck you?” Fíli asks, bracing himself over Ori. 

“Please,” Ori says.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know you are reading this.
> 
> I know you know who you are. 
> 
> STOP SENDING SONGS THAT RELATE OMG I SUDDENLY LIKE ED SHEERAN.

By the time Ori wakes up, the house is completely still. The party must be over. 

He doesn't get any moment of leniency, any time to ease into what he's done. No, he wakes up knowing where he is, exactly whose bed he's in, and what he did tonight. There's a disconnect still though, a sort of numbness around the knowing. He can feel the gaping hole that's going to eat him alive later, but for now, he can sit up and climb out of bed, and look for his clothes. 

Fíli sleeps like Kíli, that is to say, half the time Ori has to come in and shake him after he's slept through his alarm for a solid five minutes. He doesn't stir, even when Ori accidentally kicks Fíli's jeans, his belt buckle clamouring on the hardwood floor. The music is gone. The playlist must have finished sometime after they fell asleep. 

It had taken a year and a half before Ori had been willing to have sex with Jacob, and even then, he'd been unsure. Jacob had wanted to so much though, and Ori felt bad pushing him away for so long when he'd never even pressured Ori about it, had been willing to patiently wait. Of course, once Ori had given in, Jacob had thought that meant that Ori wanted to keep doing it. He'd come to dread Jacob kissing him, coming closer, because it always meant he wanted to, and it was just so... _annoying_. Time-consuming. Risky. Dori and Elsa knew, of course, they weren't stupid, but they did demand discretion, and Ori usually spent half their time together anxious about one of them coming home.

He knew Fíli for half an hour. 

Suddenly, Ori can't breathe. He has to sit down on the floor, his throat tight and painful, struggling to make it open up, take in air, let it out. He finds his shirt while he's sitting there, and tugs it on, feeling safer with another layer on. 

His mobile is near his shoes, landing on the rug underneath Fíli's bed instead of the hardwood floor thankfully. He ties his laces with shaking fingers, fumbling on the bow three or four times on the first shoe, only once on the second. 

The lava lamp has really heated up now, the globs of wax moving freely in the blue liquid. Fíli had explained it to him somewhere between the first and second time, told him about how the science fair had banned almost everything fun. “But a lava lamp was all right?” Ori had asked, confused. Fíli had been playing with his hair, the pads of his fingers on Ori's scalp making him inch closer to Fíli's side. 

“No. I got suspended.” His fingers found the nape of Ori's neck, and the sensation had been lovely. 

“What?” Ori had been surprised, sitting up on his elbow. “For a lava lamp?”

“I might have also called the biology teacher a few names. Loudly.” 

“Why would you do that?” 

Fíli had shrugged. “He kept calling Kíli stupid. My brother is an idiot, but that's because he does stupid shit all the time. He's not stupid. He's dyslexic, there's a fucking difference, and a science teacher should know better.” He had grinned, shrugged again. 

The song had been vaguely familiar, so Ori had asked, while tracing the tattoo on Fíli's bicep, fascinated about being able to _touch_ a tattoo, “What's this song?”

“ _Don't Fear The Reaper_ ,” Fíli had answered. “I love the theme of it, you know?”

“Do you?” And Ori had never heard anyone say something like that in his whole life, but he thinks maybe he's been waiting. Waiting for someone else to hear music, and hear the _story_. “Tell me.” 

Now though, now Ori lingers in the doorway for a minute before quietly coming back in and turning the lamp off. He doesn't think they're supposed to be on this long, and he doesn't want it to break or cause a fire or something. 

He opens two doors, one that leads to a bathroom and another that opens to a linen closet before he finds the door with the stairs again. Vodka always muddles up his memory. His feet are loud on the wooden stairs, too loud, but he escapes into the kitchen with no one seeming to notice. There are some people asleep in the sitting room he passes, sprawled out on the furniture, the room surprisingly neat for having hosted so many people. 

Out the front door, turning the lock behind him out of habit, and down the walk, looking for a bus stop, Ori is still somehow managing to breathe. He feels gross, tired, and far too heavy, and there's more than once he's tempted to go back, find Kíli or an obliging sofa and wait until morning. But he had locked the door, and he can't get back in. He has to keep going.

Eventually, he finds a corner store that directs him towards the nearest bus, and he's forced to wait on a cold bench for almost an hour until the bus going the right direction shows up. He's the only one on it for three stops, but then he has to transfer. Again, he waits, until the right bus comes, this one putting him in walking distance of the campus. It's too early for the bus that could take him there to come, so he walks the whole five kilometres, wishing he'd brought a jacket to the party, or at least worn a warmer shirt. 

His other two flatmates are still sleeping, so lets himself in as quietly as he can. 

Once he's safely in his bedroom, the door shut, he can finally strip off last night's clothes and climb in the shower. Clean his teeth. Put on clean clothes, a pair of trackies and a shirt that's around three sizes too big. 

He scrubs at his hair with the towel for a bit before he sits on the bed. 

He slept with someone who wasn't Jacob last night. This morning. Kíli's older brother. His only friend's older brother. His only friend who knows he has a boyfriend. Christ, what has he done?

 _Christ_. 

_Fíli's fingers digging into his thighs, thrusting forward._

The memory hits him like a shotgun blast, and Ori sobs aloud without any preliminary. His throat is dry, enough it hurts when he sobs again, pulling his knees to his chest on the bed. The damp towel falls, and he thinks to push it off the bed before it gets the bedclothes damp too. He starts to cry, ashamed and afraid, because Fíli might wake up at any point now, might wander around looking for Ori, might tell Kíli, and then Kíli will know. He'll know.

He'll tell his older brother the truth. And then Fíli will know Ori is the worst sort, will know Ori is...is _that sort_ , that he slept with Fíli when he already had a boyfriend, a _nice_ boyfriend, a boy who had been his friend long before he'd started to hold Ori's hand. 

Somehow, the idea of Fíli having a bad opinion of him is enough to stab through the pain he's already feeling. 

And Kíli. Kíli will never speak to him again, he won't be Ori's friend any more, and -

He texts Jacob without thinking, not thinking about what he writes, only that he needs him right now. Needs someone. Anyone. 

Five minutes later, he lets his mobile ring five times before he answers, trying to control his breathing so Jacob doesn't think he's crying.

It doesn't work.

“Ori? Love, what's wrong? Are you all right?” 

His throat is still almost too tight to speak, but he has to say it, he has to. “I went to a party with Kíli last night.” Because it was a lie, and he lied to his friend, he _lied_. 

“What? Why didn't you...oh fuck. Sweetheart, I'm sorry. I know he's your friend, I was being an arsehole. I'm sorry, all right? I was being jealous and stupid.” When Ori still can't say anything, because every time he thinks the word _Christ_ , he feels Fíli's belt buckle digging into his belly, Jacob says, “Ori, I'm sorry. You should be going to parties, all right? You should be having fun. I'm an arse.” 

And then he says, “Please say something.”

Ori can't. He can't get any words out at all. 

Jacob doesn't say anything either, and Ori thinks he should take comfort in Jacob's breathing, but his brain keeps rebounding back to the still-raised ink of Fíli's tattoo under the pads of his fingers, asking _“When did you get it?”_ because all Nori's tattoos are from prison, and he's never touched one someone got in a shop, of their own free will. 

_“My sixteenth birthday. It's a fractal, see -”_

“I can't -” Ori squeezes out, because he slept with someone else. He kissed Fíli, he told Fíli _yes_ , he _liked_ it. He's been pretending since the first time with Jacob, and he never had to for a second with Fíli. 

He knew Fíli for a half hour. 

“I shouldn't have gone.” He can't say it. He can't. “There were too many people.” 

“Oh,” Jacob sounds relieved, and Ori relaxes by just an inch. He's gotten away with it, hasn't he? “You didn't have an attack, did you?”

Ori shakes his head, then remembers it's the phone, and he has to talk. “No,” he says. 

“Do you think you should go to the health centre?” He would ask that. “You know, you're in a completely new environment. If you need to start taking your medicine again, no one's going to blame you.” 

Honestly, it had never even occurred to Ori, but if Jacob thinks Ori is on the verge of having attacks again, it's a reasonable suggestion. It hadn't been that long ago that just going to school had been unbearable. But Ori has worked hard to get off it, and he doesn't want to move forward just to slide back again over...over this. 

He can handle this. 

“I'll be all right.” That's hopefully not another lie. Ori thinks he's hit his quota for the whole month. “I will be.”

Jacob exhales loudly into the receiver. “Look, much as it kills me to have to rely on a rugby player, have you told that friend of yours anything about this? Because I can't be there to help you through it if you start having problems again. I know you hate talking about it, but if you have an attack -”

“I'm not going to,” Ori insists. The thought of talking to Kíli about this, after what just happened is -

Fíli knows he's Kíli's friend. Kíli knows he has a boyfriend. And Fíli might be looking for him now, and Kíli will _know_. 

“I don't feel well,” he says, trying to keep himself on solid ground. “I drank too much.” 

“You? Really?” It would be out of character. Unlike his brothers, Ori's never been much of a drinker. “Well, go lay down. Sleep it off. You'll feel better after a nap and some orange juice, I promise.” 

“You would know,” Ori replies, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “I'm sorry. I was just...”

“I always like getting to hear your voice,” Jacob says, low and intimate. “I wish I could be with you right now. Hold you.” And just like that, the comfort is gone, because now it's no longer just Ori thinking he's doing something wrong, that there's something broken in him. It's something else, something too hard to look at just now. “I miss you. I love you.” 

“You too,” he says, feeling cold. He does love Jacob. He does. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

He has a text from Kíli on his screen. He hadn't even noticed the alert. 

_\- hey you home? cant find you -_

_-Sorry,-_ he texts, after he's curled up under his blankets. _\- I didn't feel well. I'm at home. -_

Somehow, he manages to go back to sleep after he drinks a glass of juice. There's a too-long minute where he considers the last few pills in his prescription, thinks about taking just half of one, just enough to take the edge off. But he had promised her not to take them unless he felt an attack coming on, and he might be breaking promises left and right today, but he won't be breaking this one. He might not like this, but he can handle it on his own. Or he can try to, at the very least.

There are no meaningful dreams, nothing to help him. By the time he wakes, he remembers being in his kitchen at home, and Dori was there with one of his professors, the pair of them arguing over one of Ori's papers. There are snatches of others, but nothing to hold on to. 

It's Kíli coming in that wakes him out of his dozing, banging around like he always does. He throws open the door to the bathroom, Ori's bedroom door locked, and pokes at him rudely. “Just checking you're alive,” Kíli says, but Ori smacks him anyway. “What happened to you last night? I didn't see you anywhere.” 

He's being completely normal.

Fíli hasn't told him. 

“Talking to people,” Ori lies, sort of, because he was talking. “I didn't feel well though, so I went home.”

“Christ, Ori, I could have gotten Fíli to drive you, or you could have gone up to my room,” Kíli says, sitting on the bed. “You could have made yourself more sick doing that.” 

“I'm fine,” Ori argues, budging over for Kíli. “I just get nervous around lots of people sometimes.” 

“You could have told me,” Kíli is incapable of letting this go, it seems. “I was really worried this morning. I mean, shit, last night I was pretty pissed, but then I woke up and thought you'd been axe-murdered or something.”

“Weren't those people your friends?” Ori asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“It's always a close friend. The one no one ever expected.” He's completely serious. Ori is starting to realize why Dori never let him watch too many films when he was little. Apparently it really is a corrupting influence. “Do you want to go out, get dinner?”

“Still don't feel well,” Ori says, but he sits up. He's hungry now. “I could make us something?” 

“Could you make those noodles, with the white sauce, and the chicken?” 

Ori thinks about what they have, and nods. 

“Okay. I'm going to shower. I stink.” He sort of does. “We were cleaning the damn house and everyone else got to the hot water. Oh, and hey, make enough for three, Fíli drove me over, he's probably starving -” and Kíli is up and moving into the bathroom, leaving Ori to sit there. 

One more secret to never tell: Ori wants to see Fíli again, if only so he can prove to himself that Fíli is nothing special in the light of day. 

But when Ori peeks around the corner of the hall and living room, still half-hidden, he can see Fíli looking through the DVDs. And he is very handsome in daylight. Not as tall as Kíli, but still taller than Ori by almost a head it looks like, and fit. And looking at him still makes a smile start to tug at the corners of his mouth, still makes his heart flutter.

He's not unnoticed for long. Fíli looks at him, his head tilted curiously, like he's wondering why Ori is watching him.

Ori swallows, and says, “Kíli said you'd be staying for dinner?”

“Yeah,” Fíli replies, his hands in his pockets. Ori hates the way he's looking at him, quiet and disappointed. “Funny thing, when I went looking for you this morning, Kíli told me not to bother. Said you'd never be interested. Said you had a boyfriend.” Ori doesn't say anything. The floor is much easier to look at. “That true? You have a boyfriend?” When Ori still doesn't say anything, ashamed and embarrassed, Fíli pushes, coming closer and all but demanding, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

He nods, still looking at a floor. 

“So what, you make a habit of sleeping with people at parties?”

“No,” Ori hisses, angry enough to look up. “I've never -, there's never been anyone else -, just...please...” There's hurt in Fíli's face, just when Ori thought he couldn't feel any worse. “Please. Don't tell. Don't tell Kíli, don't tell _anyone_ , please, I'm begging you -” Kíli would never speak to him again, he's sure, and if Jacob finds out, all their friends at home will too, and Ori won't have anyone at all. That's unbearable, and probably the punishment he deserves, but he's not strong enough to face it. 

His face is hot, his stomach twists into impossible knots, and before he can get himself under control, he's shaking like a leaf. Not an attack. Not yet. Not ever again, no, he has to get past this, all of this, he promised. 

He promised her. 

A hand touches his face, and it's Fíli. His thumb brushes under Ori's eye. “Christ, don't look at me like that. I won't tell.” 

“I'm so sorry,” Ori says. “I'm _sorry_ , I don't know why I...you were just...I'm so sorry.” 

Fíli doesn't say anything right away, but his hand lingers far too long on Ori's face, his thumb stroking Ori's cheekbone. “Just my luck,” he mutters. “Finally meet someone who can hold a damn conversation, and someone else got there first.” 

His hand is cool, slowly warming against Ori's face, and calloused. He's an engineering student, and he plays rugby, so of course his hands are full of callouses. He spends his days holding pencils and pens, or shoving at people. They'd been rough on Ori's hips, tracing his spine up when Fíli pulled him in his lap. Ori has never had sex in that position, preferring to be on his back or his stomach, sometimes his side. It had been fun like that though.

At least with Fíli, it was. With the music, and the blue light from the lamp, and the way Fíli smiled. 

“I need to get dinner started,” Ori says, all too aware of how his own body is betraying him. He hardly knows Fíli. Still, when he pulls away, he's nice about it, not wanting to hurt Fíli any more than he already has. “Do you like alfredo?” 

“Yeah.” Because he's Kíli's brother, and probably just like him in regards to food.

“Okay,” he says, for something to say, his arms around himself as he walks past Fíli. Or tries to. 

Fíli stops him, an arm across Ori's belly. Quietly, enough that even if Kíli was right there in the living room he wouldn't hear, he asks, “But I didn't make it all up, did I?”

Ori looks up at him, at his blue eyes and the lines around his mouth, the silver studs in his ears, and his hair, back and controlled. He remembers the way the empty piercings felt under his fingers, remembers Fíli's hair down. Remembers wanting to be touched, wanting to be kissed. Never thinking Jacob's name once. 

“No,” he says, and hurries away. 

Cooking is easy at least, methodical enough Ori can focus on each step without interference from the rest of his mind. He melts the butter, slowly adding the cream, while the water starts to boil for the noodles. Once he has those in, he adds the garlic to the sauce, then half the cheese, and half the pepper. He'll add more of both once the noodles are ready, but Dori had always taught him it was better to do half this part now, so the sauce had time to absorb the flavour. In the meantime, he cooks the chicken he'd cut a day ago when he bought it, squirting a bit of lemon juice over it, some more pepper, as it started to turn white. Kíli comes out of the shower at some point, his wet hair back in an elastic, and sits at the bar, talking to Ori and Fíli both. 

If Kíli's suspicious of anything, he keeps it to himself. Soon enough, he gets bored with being ignored by Ori and Fíli, and throws himself across the sofa, turning the telly on to watch a film with lots of cars from what Ori sees. 

“Need any help?” Fíli has wandered into the kitchen, his distance not as respectful as it could be. 

“No,” Ori says truthfully. “I like cooking.” 

“I never learned,” Fíli says, still close enough that when Ori sidles over a bit so he can be between the chicken and the sauce, he can smell the soap on Fíli again. Patchouli and...something else musky. Deep, and unmistakeably a man's scent. Ori's never understood that, how it happens that somehow some boys keep smelling like Lynx, and others graduate to this sort, more adult. Headier. 

_\- burying his face in Fíli's neck, inhaling deep, the sheets twisting under his back and Fíli so heavy and warm on top of him -_

He can't fight his blush, and Fíli definitely notices. “How did you and Kíli never learn how to cook?” Ori needs to talk, for once, needs to keep Fíli from saying anything more...just _more_. 

“There was always an adult,” Fíli explains, bracing himself on the counter. In just a tee shirt, Ori can see how it defines the muscle in his arms, and that's never really meant anything to Ori before. He's known plenty of boys with muscle. But now he can remember how the strength in them applied to Ori, how it felt to be so easily moved, Fíli's fingers pressing into his skin. “If not Mum, then one of our uncles, or one of their friends. Uncle Frerin liked to cook a lot.” 

Ori's never heard that name before, and he raises an eyebrow at Fíli.

Now it's Fíli who looks at the floor, swallowing, his Adam's apple bobbing. “Uncle Frerin was Mum and Uncle Thorin's little brother. He died when I was eleven. Car crash.”

“I'm sorry,” he says automatically. Then he adds, “Do you remember him much?” 

“Yeah, I do. Kíli is a bit fuzzier, but I do.” Ori waits, thinking he's going to say something about their father, but instead, he says, “Been eight years now. It's normal to forget stuff. We were just kids anyway.” 

Ori stirs the sauce, keeps the butter and cream mixed while the noodles cook. 

Kíli never talks about their father either. 

“Where are you from?” Fíli asks, frowning. His eyes are so very blue, like the autumn sky. Ori's never seen that colour in real life, just heard it described in books. He hadn't noticed last night in the dim lighting. 

“Near Exeter,” Ori says, moving the chicken around now and pretending this is all normal. He's meeting Kíli's brother. He didn't meet him last night. He did not have sex with him, multiple times, a first for him, in one night. He didn't discuss music and art and maths and science, they didn't talk about Blue Oyster Cult and Stevie Nicks and Bastille and half the singers on the charts. “Almost in it, but not quite.” 

“Really? We have family down there. Well, sort of.” He turns so he just has one hand on the counter, his body turned towards Ori. He only comes up to Fíli's shoulder, and why does that make his breathing difficult? “Uncle Frerin had a girlfriend. Really loved her, they were together for like, ten years. After he died, she moved back home, down there. Mum likes to go visit every few months. They mostly talk shop. Or about me and Kíli.” 

“Is she an engineer too?” Ori keeps his eyes on the food, reducing the heat on the chicken. He does not look at Fíli's hand on the counter, the way two of his knuckles are somewhat swollen, like they've been broken once or twice. They might have been. 

“No, she teaches at the university, at Exeter. Mathematics though.” He grins at Ori, and despite everything, because really, there's so much there now, Ori's heart flutters in his chest. “Sorry. Whole family is cold and logical.” 

“Kíli is studying art history,” Ori reminds him, smiling because Fíli is. 

“Kíli is an idiot.” 

Ori looks up at him, still smiling, and Fíli's grin grows.

The noodles are just on the undone side of done, so Ori scoops them out with tongs, and starts to toss them in the sauce. While he does that, Fíli gets plates out of a cabinet, only guessing wrong once before finding them. He takes them off Kíli's shelf, then stacks utensils on top of them, and goes in to set the table. 

“Drinks?” he asks, and Ori hitches his chin up the top of the fridge, where there are a few bottles Dori sent with him. He had been convinced Ori would have to impress someone. “Matter which one?” 

“Whichever you like.” With that house, no matter what Fíli and Kíli say, he doesn't doubt they know wine.

It's bizarre, the whole situation. He'd been so upset a second ago, hadn't he? He should still be. He should be avoiding Fíli. He should be locked in his room, sick to his stomach and unhappy. He shouldn't be smiling. He should be remembering Jacob, keeping his distance. And he's still ashamed, but Fíli's presence keeps it at bay, something in him unashamed of finding Fíli attractive, of wanting Fíli. 

Perhaps because there's so much distance between home and here, because he hasn't seen Jacob for so long, and he's starting to feel less like a person and more like an abstract. Whereas Fíli is here, striking and fascinating and so intelligent.

Striking. That's the word for him. _Striking_. 

“Where's the bottle opener?” Fíli asks, his hand suddenly finding the small of Ori's back in the cramped kitchen space. 

Ori doesn't draw away. He should, he should. He absolutely should remind Fíli that he has a boyfriend, and that is not an appropriate place to touch him. 

But it feels good. 

“That drawer,” Ori says, nodding at the one on his right. Fíli reaches over with the hand not on Ori's back, opens it and finds the tool. And then he hovers, staying right there in Ori's space.

Ori glances at him out of the corner of his eye.

“You sure you have a boyfriend?” he asks, his voice low enough it puts a shiver up Ori's spine.

“Yes.” 

Fíli's hand falls, but his fingers dig in as he does, leaving trails of lightning across Ori's back.

If Ori had any sense, that would be the end of it. He would stay away from Fíli.

But something has happened, something Ori can hardly comprehend. By letting Fíli close again, by letting him touch, Fíli has become dangerous. Ori can call Jacob as much as he likes, can lie to himself, but every time Fíli comes over after, and god, but he does come over often now, visiting Kíli, Ori looks forward to it. He makes the effort to cook, doesn't wear the cardigans that make him shapeless. Every time he talks to Jacob, he feels sick. 

Every time Fíli smiles at him, touches him, he feels like he's about to burst. 

The sick feeling usually follows that too though.

Because every time, they talk about music, about art, about maths and science, and sometimes they argue, but they find common ground too. They find too much common ground, even if they don't always agree over it. 

And that leads to now, in the library, where Fíli appears from nowhere, grinning. He has a book in his hand, but it's history. “What are you doing with that?” Ori asks, curious. 

“My professor is mad,” Fíli says, leaning on the shelves. “What are you up to?”

“Avoiding you, since you seem to be at the flat all the time.” It's not as venomous as it should be. It's not even true. He loves when Fíli is there, when he and Ori can talk after Kíli has had too much to drink and is dozing on the couch. Loves how close Fíli comes, his every time, Ori can smell that same combination of soap and sandalwood and musk. “Don't you have a suite?”

“Suite doesn't have food,” Fíli teases, and there's his hand, sliding across the small of Ori's back like it belongs there. “Or you cooking it. Or you.” 

“You and Kíli are so lazy,” Ori says, but he doesn't move away just yet. _Or you_ is very charming, and Fíli must know it, but Ori is still charmed. “I could just teach you how to cook.”

“Well, then I'd have to come up with a new excuse,” Fíli says, his breath on Ori's face. Charming, so very charming.

“Boyfriend.” It's what makes Fíli move away, every time, but Ori feels worse every time he says it. He's down to once a week Skype sessions with Jacob, but Jacob still texts him every day, telling him good morning, then asking him how he feels. He's worried Ori is going to have an attack, even if he doesn't say, and he wants Ori back on his medicine. He doesn't say that either. But Ori knows that's what he means, because he knows Jacob.

“You sure?” Fíli's hand drops, but his fingers drag, and it's still like lightning, crackling up Ori's spine and making him shiver.

“Are you stalking me?” Ori asks, running his finger over the spines of the books. Books are comforting, always have been. A book is always a book, always the same story, the same friends, the same words. Ori can read some books over and over, until he practically has them memorized. He wishes he'd read a book that could explain this. 

“Maybe.” He's becoming bolder with how close he'll stand to Ori. The distance between them now certainly wouldn't leave much to the imagination of anyone who saw them. “I prefer to think of it as friendship.” 

“We're not really friends,” Ori reminds him, selecting a book at last. 

“Why not?” Fíli asks. 

Ori concentrates on his book, not answering. He doesn't want to. 

“We could be really good friends,” Fíli pushes, the flirtation gone. He just looks sad now, less like a kicked puppy than Kíli, but the effect is somehow worse. “We could make a go of it.”

“You don't want to be friends,” Ori says, unable to look at him. 

To Fíli's credit, he doesn't deny it. “No. I don't.” 

He still walks Ori back to housing, their conversation sliding too easily into the no-safer areas of art. Not at all safe, because when Fíli talks about art and music, Ori ha sto wrap his arms around himself to keep his hands to himself. 

Today is telly, when Ori starts to wax poetic about _Downton Abbey_ by mistake. It's Elsa's fault really. His sister-in-law had fallen in love with the show from the first episode, and Ori always watched it with her, because Dori wouldn't. He loves the way they speak though, how easily actors can adopt slang from an era their grandparents lived in, the way they're always shown reading, receiving letters. The costumes and the great big house. 

“I like the way they use music,” Fíli says, “But I never really bought the whole Mary-and-Matthew thing. Mary Crawley just wants to be Lady Mary and rule Downton with an iron fist.” 

“But she didn't before Matthew!” Ori argues, shaking his head. “She was selfish, and spoiled. She just wanted things because she thought she was owed them. Matthew made her see she had to fight for them, had to _work_.”

“Still don't buy it.” He's so tall, it takes Ori almost two steps to match his one, but Fíli is walking deliberately slow so they can match one another more easily. “She's like my mum. She thinks she wants to be married, but really, she likes being the one who makes all the decisions.” 

“That doesn't mean she doesn't want a partner,” Ori says, trying to convince him. “You want help, especially since has her son -”

“We never even see her son, he's being raised by a nanny,” Fíli dismisses, taking the opportunity to snatch the book out of Ori's hand. He walks backwards while he reads the summary aloud, Ori trying to get it back. It's a lost cause, Fíli too tall and strong to really fight, but then one thing leads to another, and they're chest-to-chest, Ori's fingers in Fíli's shirt to hold his balance on the tips of his toes, frantically trying to grab the thing out of Fíli's outstretched arm. 

His other arm comes around Ori's waist, and Ori can't breathe, remembering how Fíli breathes, how his skin feels, how heavy he is. 

“Stop,” he says firmly, pushing away. “Give me my book.” 

“Ori -”

“Give me my book,” he demands, looking at the pavement. “Just give me my book.”

He does. He doesn't say a word, just lets Ori go. 

Inside the flat, Kíli is sitting at the kitchen table, a book in front of him. He's not reading it though, his eyes far away. “Hey,” he says, when Ori shuts the door. 

“Hi,” Ori replies, hanging his scarf and coat on the hook. “What's wrong?”

He doesn't look at Ori when he says, “Nothing.” 

“Are you sure?” Ori's not sure he believes him, not when he looks so serious. 

“Yeah,” he says, standing and shutting his book. “Hey, I have to see my professor, but you want to meet at the pub later?” 

“Sure.” Ori doesn't think he should say _no_. “When?”


	4. Chapter 4

Four hours later, he's leaving the pub, trying to breathe and hating himself. He's thought to text Kíli, tell him he feels sick, but he's ignored all the replies. He just can't right now.

Every time. Every _damn_ time.

He can't make up his mind how he feels when he sits down on the steps of their building, can't sort out what his problem is, why he feels this way. Fíli is...he's not Jacob. He's not Ori's friend. The way he makes Ori feel doesn't make sense, because Jacob is the one who's been there through everything, the one who's held Ori's hand at the funeral, the one who helped him through every attack, who stayed by his side in public, who never made Ori do anything he wasn't ready for. 

It made sense, for them to date. Everyone thought so. Even Dori approved, and Dori still doesn't really think Ori is well enough to be in a relationship. So what's wrong with Ori, that kissing Jacob was always a chore? That he couldn't even like sex, like everyone else? It wasn't even like Jacob was bad at it, it was just...it was always boring. A concession to him, for being what Ori needed. He had always been kind, and sweet about it, and if Ori had told him to stop, he would have without question. 

He was always so nice.

One more secret, to tuck away and never share: he thinks about having sex with Fíli again. He thinks about the strength in his hands, the way it feels when he touches Ori. He thinks about kissing Fíli, about touching him. And the worst part is, Fíli wants to as well. If Ori gave him the slightest sign he could, Fíli wouldn't hesitate, he's sure. And he doesn't treat it like a secret. 

The longer Ori spends here, the further away his home life seems, and the easier it's becoming to imagine Fíli deciding to swoop down and kiss him again, press Ori up against the counter one of the days he comes over for dinner, cage him in again. A part of him he had never explored before wonders if Fíli could pick him, sit him on the counter, step between Ori's legs. Keep kissing him. 

Talking to Jacob brings home closer, or the rest of their friends, or Dori and Elsa. Their messages remind Ori that they're real, that he has another life waiting for him. One that does not include Fíli, or even Kíli.

He should text Jacob back now. He'll worry. If he keeps avoiding Jacob's questions, he might finally go see Dori, and if Dori thinks Ori should be back on his medicine, there's nothing that will stop him from dragging Ori back to the doctor. Dori and Elsa had been the ones to watch Ori fall apart, when his normally anxious personality took a swan dive, turning him into a wreck of panic attacks and insomnia, refusing to leave the house during the day, only going where he was comfortable when it was soft and dark and empty out. 

The doctor had assured them all that this sort of thing wasn't unusual, considering the circumstances, and their, and this had been said in a delicate voice, so as not to offend, _family history_. 

Her letter is still hidden inside a full sketchbook, sitting on his desk in the flat. He's tempted to go up and take it out now, read it again. Some probably would call it “morose” to keep it, find comfort in it, but he does. It makes him sad, usually, but it also comforts him. 

But he's tired, too tired for Jacob, for her, or for Fíli, so he just sits on the steps in the cold for a bit longer before getting up to go inside and crawl in his bed. The cold follows him, and no matter how tight he tucks his blankets around himself, he can't seem to get it out of his bones. His sleepiness follows him too, and he falls asleep with his jaw clenched to keep himself from shivering. 

He doesn't wake up the next morning, not really. Everything feels like it's wrapped in cotton, his limbs weighed down by a tonne apiece. He's still freezing, and thirsty too, but moving is too difficult, so he stays in the bed, until Kíli lets himself in, a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. 

“Jesus, you look like someone ran you over,” he says, leaning over Ori.

Ori thinks to make a sarcastic reply. He has one all ready. 

He falls back into an exhausting, dreamless sleep instead.

The next time he opens his eyes, it's because someone is urging him up. 

“Come on then, you'll feel better if you take these,” the voice says, as he blinks heavily. Pain-killers are being held up towards him, so he takes them and pops them in his mouth automatically. He's been here too many times before, been sick like this. The bottle of sports drink is a welcome sight, and he practically guzzles it, his throat scratchy, his mouth like a desert. “Jesus, Kíli,” the voice says, and Ori forces his eyes all the way open so he can see Fíli sitting beside him on the bed. “Didn't you give him anything to drink?” 

“Am I supposed to do that?” That's Kíli, off to the side. “Should we take him to the health centre?” 

“No,” Fíli says, taking the bottle back so Ori can catch his breath. His lungs are on fire, and the effort it takes to sit up and drink more is honestly too much. “His temperature is high, but it's not dangerous. Didn't you check on him last night? He said he didn't feel well.”

“I thought he was just making it up to get away from you,” Kíli replies darkly, and the still-conscious part of Ori's brain worries over that.

“Mind your own,” Fíli says, just as darkly. 

“Be nice,” Ori interjects, hearing how quiet he is. The words are just so much work to get out, but he manages, though he's not sure which one he's talking to. Maybe both. Right. “Both of you.” He can't possibly keep his eyes open a second longer, so he shuts them again, his body apparently intending to go right back to sleep. 

Something touches his temple, and he hears Fíli say, “Go run a rag under some cold water, then ring it out. Not too cold though,” before he dives back under into the uncomfortably deep sleep of a fever. 

His dreams are strange and uncomfortable, so he's glad to wake up, feeling a bit more like himself. He's been asleep for hours, so long he's missed all his classes for the day, but he can't quite dredge up the energy to care just yet. He works on sitting up instead. There's another sports drink by the bed, and he downs it gratefully, noticing his door is open, held that way with a few heavy textbooks. 

He's just finishing when Fíli comes in, a thermometer in his hand. He doesn't ask Ori any questions as he runs it across Ori's forehead, still frowning when he sees the readout. “Damn, you're still at thirty-eight.” 

“It happens,” Ori says, surprising Fíli.

“Are you conscious this time?” 

“Did I wake up before?” He likely did. He usually does, but everyone always says he's like a zombie when he does. 

“How long have you been feeling sick?” Fíli is actually concerned, he sees, and he remembers him leaning over Ori, giving him medicine. 

“It just happens, for me.” Ori can be fine at breakfast, and sick as a plague victim by dinner. “Why are you here?” 

“Because Kíli didn't know what to do, and neither did the other two morons living here,” Fíli replies, checking the time on his mobile. “I can't give you anything else yet. Do you get sick a lot?” 

“Yeah,” he answers, not elaborating. “I'll be all right now. You can go.” 

“Your temperature could go back up.” Fíli stands, running his palms over his hair. It's in its usual tight queue, the ends of it curling like Kíli's does. “Kíli talked to your professors.” 

That's kind of him, but Ori suspects it was Fíli who thought of it.

Oh.

 _Oh_. 

“You've been taking care of me, haven't you?”

Fíli shrugs. “I can afford to miss class. Kíli can't. He needs to actually hear the lecture, or he'll be lost.” 

“My other flatmates -”

“I wouldn't trust either of them with a goldfish, much less you.” Ori can't disagree, but he still feels odd accepting Fíli's help. They're not friends. They're not anything, not really, except inappropriate. “You look pretty bad.” 

That's sort of horrifically embarrassing. Ori's suddenly aware of the fact he's been in bed with a fever for a day now, that he smells like sleep and sweat, that his hair must be a matted mess, that he's flushed and bleary-eyed, in front of _Fíli_. “Sorry,” he says, reaching up to rake his fingers through his limp hair. “Really, you can go. My temperature usually spikes pretty bad, but it never goes back up. I'll be fine.” 

“Don't lie to me,” Fíli says, his gaze too steady for Ori to handle. “You're not as good at it when you're sick.” 

“When did I lie to you before?” He's ill, his fever still making him muddled. That's why he asks. 

“When I kissed you,” Fíli replies, not looking away. “And I asked you if I had the wrong idea. You said I didn't.”

“I wasn't lying,” Ori says, lying back down, his head too heavy to hold. “I wanted to kiss you.”

“But you have a boyfriend.” Fíli pulls the blankets back up around Ori, Ori shivering in the cool room. “So it was a lie.” 

“How?” 

Fíli sighs, running his palms over his tightly bound hair. “Go to sleep. I'll wake you up when you can take more.” 

He'd protest if he had the energy. Instead, he falls asleep again. 

He wakes up completely alone. The flat is empty of everyone but him, he knows, without even checking. There's an emptiness around him, only the muffled noises of the people above and below him. He's thirsty, but there's no bottle or glass by the bed this time, and he needs the bathroom. So with concentrated effort, he heaves himself up and out of bed, the effort enough he has to hold his desk to keep himself from swaying. He's dizzy from the fever and lack of food, but he can fix that if he can just get to the kitchen.

He manages the bathroom first, thankfully, since that's the most pressing problem, then steels himself to take care of the other one.

Using the wall, he gets himself out of his room, and down the hall to the kitchen. His body feels drunk, his mind trying to fight through the clouds as he wonders where everyone is. Hadn't Fíli been here? Where's Kíli? 

He has to rest against the counter, managing to get a glass out of the cabinet, and get it filled with orange juice before he has to sit down on the floor, too tired to do much else. He's not thirsty now, at least. He seems to be somewhat stuck here though. It won't do. He can at least get to the sofa. Probably. 

It takes forever, but he does manage it. Gratefully he sinks down on to it, closing his eyes. He's almost awake now. Maybe he could watch television. There's nothing on, not really, but he likes the sound. 

After a few more minutes, the front door opens, but it's not Kíli or one of the other two. It's Fíli, practically slamming the door as he swears at Ori. “What the bloody hell are you doing out of bed?”

“I was thirsty,” Ori protests, offended. “I'm not an invalid.” 

Fíli leans over him, but instead of his usual scent, the stale smell of cigarettes is clinging to him. “I was only gone for a minute,” he mutters, the back of his hand against Ori's forehead. “Christ, you're still hot. Hold on, let me get the ibuprofen.” 

“You smoke?” Ori asks, oddly disappointed. 

“Sometimes,” Fíli answers, sounding defensive. “What's it to you?” 

“Why are you talking to me like that?” He's being nasty, like he can be with Kíli whenever Kíli starts to get on his nerves. Or when Kíli lingers too long when Fíli clearly wants to spend time with Ori alone. “I didn't ask you to be here. You can leave at any time, you know, I don't actually -”

It's very sudden. Ori's eyes close automatically, his hands hovering over his own lap, not sure what to do. It's even more awkward when Fíli pulls back, his expression the same bullheaded one Kíli gets when he wants his way. 

“You'll get sick doing that,” Ori says, for lack of anything else to say. 

Fíli leaves him, goes to the kitchen and gets the bottle of ibuprofen, plus another glass of juice. Ori takes what he's given, unsure of what to do when Fíli sits beside him on the sofa. 

“At the party -,”

“I don't want to talk about the party -” Ori starts, but Fíli cuts him off. 

“You don't actually get a choice right now. You're the one with a boyfriend, and you're the one who went upstairs with me, you're the one who won't just put me out of my goddamned misery and tell me to sod off. You keep letting me think I have a chance, and that's cruel, Ori, all right, because if you like me as much as I like you, you're not getting something from him, and you have to know it -”

“You shut up!” Ori demands, raising his voice, clearly surprising Fíli. “You don't know _anything_ , so don't ever pretend you do!” 

“What don't I understand?” 

He's not backing down, and in the background, the telly seems ridiculously loud now that they've both finished shouting. 

“Get out,” Ori says quietly, but Fíli doesn't budge. 

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, I want to know. I want to know why you won't give me a chance. I want to know what he has over me.” He clearly has no intention of leaving, and Ori wants to shove him, force him away, because he's circling something sharp and jagged in Ori and -

And Ori is still breathing normally. 

He bites his bottom lip, unsure of what that means, if it means anything at all, but impulsively, he says, “Did Kíli tell you my mother was dead?” Fíli shakes his head, and this is usually the part where Ori can't get a word past his throat, but he's feverish and tired and Fíli just _kissed him_ for Christ's sake. “She is. She committed suicide when I was fourteen. And it was my fault.” 

Fíli's anger visibly drains out of his shoulders, as he says, “Ori, that can't be true -”

“No, it is,” Ori insists. “Mine and my brothers. She killed herself because of us.” 

He thinks he should be surprised when Fíli takes his hand, not asking any questions about what any of this has to do with himself, or Jacob, or the situation. Instead he waits, his hand still cold from being outside. 

Ori still feels normal. “She was ill,” he says, the words coming easily in the dark living room, just the telly casting shifting blue light on Fíli's face, the program a dull chatter in the background. “She tried really hard to get better. But nothing ever really worked. Child services said she was an unfit mother, and they kept taking me from her. I would go live with my eldest brother and his wife, until she got approved again, and then I'd go home for a bit. She was never violent, before you think the worst. She was just ill.” 

Still, Fíli says nothing. He leaves Ori no choice but to keep speaking.

“She was...she tried so hard. By the time I was old enough, I knew we had to help her, and I tried my best to keep everything easy for her. She was my mother. I loved her. But it meant I couldn't have friends, not really, because I had to take care of her.” Ori feels oddly detached from the story for once, this place so removed from home and the pain. “Jacob refused to give up on me. He would go with me to the shops, and he showed me how to pay bills, and handle a household. He's the eldest, you see, and his mother owns the flower shop, and his father is an electrician. They depended on him to help them with things like that. And he helped me too. And I knew he liked me, he never hid it, but he never asked for anything either. He just helped me because I needed help.” The hardest part happens, and Ori can still breathe. He doesn't know what to make of that. “One day though, I came home, and she was up and showered and dressed. She'd packed all my things. She told me I had to go live with Dori again. That she couldn't take care of me any more.” 

She'd even braided her long red hair, and that had been so surprising. Ori had been frightened, though he hadn't known why. He supposes now that he knew. She'd looked so small, in her dressing gown, pale with dark circles under her eyes, her hair still damp. Small, like her sons. 

“And then?” Fíli asks, quiet. He knows where the story ends, Ori sees. He's heard it before, and suddenly Ori knows what happened to his father. 

“I went to Dori's. I thought she needed time alone.” That's actually the truth too, and Ori's never said it aloud. “Sometimes she felt better if we left her alone for a little bit.” Ori had known she wanted to be alone, that she wasn't trying to hurt him. He'd wanted so badly to help, to be accommodating of what she needed. “She waited until I had everything out of the house and was settled at Dori's. Two days. And then she blocked up the kitchen, and turned the gas on.”

And Ori had cried so hard, because _he'd left her alone_ She wouldn't have done it if he stayed. She wouldn't of. 

“She wrote a letter for each of us. Myself and my two brothers. She apologised for not being what we needed, for not being a good enough mother.” Why can he still breathe? He can never breathe through this, has never been able to say a word of this to anyone, not even Jacob. “She said this way was best, because children weren't supposed to take care of their parents. This way, we could have our own lives. She did it because she thought it was the only way she could be a good mother for us.

“And through all of this, all Jacob did was hold my hand.” He'd never pressed, never touched. He'd gotten Ori's classwork for him, helped him through it when his own mind was in shambles. He'd walked with Ori at night, talking about their friends, the village, anything at all that wasn't what had Ori in a tailspin. He'd waited until Ori let him hold his hand, until Ori let him take him out to the cinema, kiss Ori. Jacob had been a comfort he so badly needed. “He's been my friend, you see? When I was a wreck, he was my friend.” 

He thinks Fíli understands, but it seems he understands more than Ori wants him to, when he says, “But you still don't want to sleep with him.” 

Finally, Ori's throat closes, or tries to. He can't speak, can't find words to tell Fíli that it's not the issue, it's not important, Ori doesn't mind, not really. But he can't say it, because now he knows what it feels like to want someone to touch him like that, and he's starting to wonder what he'll do when he sees Jacob again, and Jacob wants to kiss him, sleep with him. 

Imagine Fíli, he suspects, with dread in his belly. 

“We can't do this,” Ori says, hoping it can make it sink in for him as well. “We can't.”

“You want to be with me,” Fíli states firmly. “And I'm not playing this game any more. If you don't want to see me any more, I get that. I don't like it, but I understand now. And I'll keep it quiet from Kíli, if that's what you want.” His fingers lace with Ori's, and he refuses to look away from Ori's eyes. “But I'm going to kiss you again, the minute we're alone.”

Ori knows he should tell Fíli _no_.

He knows this.

Instead, he falls asleep on Fíli's shoulder. 

His temperature does spike again, but it drops just as easily, and by the end of the week, he feels well enough to return to classes. Fíli doesn't come by, and he doesn't message Ori at all. 

He's waiting for Ori to make the move, and Ori has resolved to not, to not do a damn thing, until he finds one of Fíli's books in his room. It's a set-up. It is. He knows it. 

But he still makes his way to the building Fíli lives in, the book in hand. And when Fíli opens the door, and steps aside for Ori to come in, Ori does it. 

Fíli doesn't say anything. It's Ori who says, “When I have sex with Jacob, I'm bored.” He puts the book on the counter of the little kitchenette. Fíli's suite is clean. Very clean. “When he kisses me, I'm waiting for him to be satisfied, so he'll stop. I thought there was something wrong with me, because I love him. I do.” He swallows. “But I'm not bored when I'm having sex with you. And I never want you to stop kissing me.”

His back hits the wall, Fíli against his chest, and _yes_ , he wants this. He wants Fíli's hands pushing his cardigan up, wants Fíli's hands _there_ , on his spine, dragging his nails against Ori's spine, and Ori wants to touch him too, wants to kiss and touch and part his legs for Fíli to fit between. 

“I'm not stopping,” Fíli says against Ori's mouth. 

“I didn't say to, did I?” Ori replies, and damns himself. 

He could breathe when he talked about her to Fíli. 

He could breathe.

He can breathe now too.


	5. Chapter 5

Fíli orders Thai for them after an hour or so. Ori offers to help pay, mentally doing the maths on his bank account, but Fíli just scoffs. “Do you have any idea how much spending money we get? Might as well spend it on feeding you.” He looks in his little fridge, asking, “Do you want a beer? Or, I've got cider, and some wine -,” 

“Do you have actual food?” He hears Fíli smirk, and shakes his head. “You and Kíli are hopeless.” 

“Probably,” he says. “So? Anything?”

“Beer is fine,” Ori answers, “I don't like cider.” When Fíli raises an eyebrow, holding out an open bottle for him to take, Ori elaborates, “It was the first thing I ever drank. I was fourteen, and I drank six bottles.” 

Fíli laughs, sitting on the bed. “And you spent the whole night being sick?” 

“And most of the morning,” Ori says, nodding, embarrassed, but still wanting to laugh. “I've never been able to drink it since.” 

“Understandable,” Fíli says, chuckling. “What were you doing drinking at fourteen?”

“My friend, Rani, she's um, two years older? She wanted to go to this party in Exeter, and no one else could go with her of course, but Dori and Elsa, my brother and sister-in law? They were away for the weekend. I was such an easy kid, they thought they could trust me.” He can hardly look at Fíli, because if he does, he's going to turn bright red. Already, his face is hot. 

“It was a lie,” Fíli accuses, his back against the wall now. 

“I usually was! But she wanted company so bad, and I haven't grown since I was fourteen, so I could pass as older.” He takes a drink, daring to look up at Fíli. 

His heart skips a beat. 

Impulsively, he rises up a bit, and kisses the corner of Fíli's mouth. It's not so much the kissing, Ori thinks, but that he wants to be close to Fíli, to be within a moment's distance of him. 

Fíli turns his head, so they're really kissing, for just a few minutes, Ori's fingers tight around the neck of his bottle so as not to spill it on Fíli's bed. The music shifts over to a new song, still playing despite being on since Ori came in. “You really do love music, don't you?” he asks, sure he knows this song. It's Bastille, he's pretty sure. “Don't your neighbours complain?”

“Not to my face,” Fíli says, shrugging. His hair is still up, and it makes the lines of his face harsher, so Ori pulls on the elastic, Fíli getting the hint and pulling it out entirely. 

“Are they scared of you?” Ori teases, playing with Fíli's hair until it starts to lie more normally. 

Fíli makes a face, taking a swig of his beer. “I did punch my neighbour on the right in the face my first week living here.” He's not joking. Ori sits back, frowning, until Fíli explains. “It was at that pub you and Kíli go to the quizzes at. Bastard started running his damn mouth, I hit him, he stopped talking.” It's not much of an explanation, but Ori's not sure he should press. 

He's never known anyone who actually hit someone though. “Why did you hit him?”

Instead of answering right away, Fíli sets his beer down on the sill, and stretches out, putting his head in Ori's lap. It's unexpected, but not unpleasant, and he takes the opportunity to stroke Fíli's hair. Fíli isn't really looking at Ori, more the ceiling, when he says, “You know what's funny about suicide?” He doesn't wait for Ori to react. “See, when women kill themselves, they do it neat. Overdose. That sort of thing. Psychologists say it's because women think about the fact that someone has to clean it up. They're considerate about it.” Ori does know that, actually. It was one of the many things he'd read after it happened. “Men though, they just want to get it over with. They don't think about that. They just want to get the job done.” 

Another impulse has Ori bending over to kiss Fíli's temple. When he'd talked about it, he'd liked Fíli holding his hand. Maybe Fíli feels the same way.

When it had happened, he hadn't wanted anyone to touch him at all. 

“Moron was talking about suicide that night. About what cowards people who do it are.” That offends Ori even, and he's suddenly not sorry Fíli punched the idiot. “See, my dad, he hanged himself.” Fíli's tone is almost questioning. “Wasn't pretty.”

Ori keeps stroking his hair, trying to give some comfort. “You found him.” 

“Yeah,” Fíli says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I wasn't supposed to be home. I skived off, came home early. Wasn't anything I could do for him. He left a note too, but it was just him saying he was sorry. Nothing specific. Guess he thought Mum would find him.” He swallows, and still won't look at Ori. “I cut him down. Texted Kíli, told him not to come home. Then I called my uncle. Not my mum. Thorin always knows what to do. He came over, took care of everything.”

“You stayed in the house?” Ori thinks he's allowed to ask.

“Felt wrong, to leave him alone.” 

He stays in Ori's lap until someone knocks on the door, the woman delivering the food. Fíli takes care of it, and then the pair of them sort through the order, not that Ori thinks it will make much difference. It doesn't, in fact, Fíli nicking out of Ori's containers without hesitation. Considering he paid for it, Ori's not going to argue. 

More than that, it makes things feel familiar. Nice, despite their conversation. Maybe because of it. They understand one another, in far too many ways.

Fíli finds another, after they've got everything laid out. He wants to move away from their worst pain, and Ori knows how that feels, the awkwardness of revealing something painful, then wanting to cover it back up, let it go. 

“So I'm guessing all the sci-fi and fantasy DVDs were yours,” Fíli says, finishing his second beer and half-smiling now. Ori is still working through his, but he smiles back, raising his eyebrows. “I might have been thinking about you when I was looking.”

Things feel strangely open and exposed and non-painful now. The first two don't usually go with the third, but right now they do. 

Ori smiles wider over his bottle, warmth shooting through him at the thought of Fíli thinking of him that day. “Were you?”

“I was so angry with you,” Fíli says, poking at his food. “I woke up alone, and then Kíli told me you had a boyfriend, and I was...Christ, I was so fucking angry.” He shakes his head, and says, “And then I was in the flat, and I knew I was going to see you again, and all I could think about was how to convince you to break up with him and go out with me.” 

“You didn't even know me,” Ori reminds him, thinking of how his own heart had been beating when he looked at Fíli that day.

“So imagine how I've felt over the past month,” Fíli says, raising his eyebrows. “Knowing you more, knowing you and me weren't just physical.” He touches Ori's face, tips his chin up so he's looking at Fíli head-on. “And you wouldn't push me away. You kept giving me hope, kept talking to me, kept being everything I wanted.”

His fingers are warm on Ori's jaw, causing sparks. “Everything except _Dune_ is mine. I hate _Dune_.”

“Oh, thank Christ, me too,” Fíli says, kissing Ori again. “I was worried I was going to have to pretend I like it.”

“No,” Ori says, shaking his head hard. “God no, even I can't get through those books.” He eyes Fíli. “Ender's Game?”

“Yes, I support an author who spends his money making sure people like us get to stay second-class citizens,” Fíli replies, laughing as he leans over to kiss Ori's jaw. “I never liked that book anyway. I just use the asshole-author angle as an excuse.” 

Ori laughs, and whispers conspiratorially, “I never liked his writing either.” 

Now they both laugh, and kiss, Fíli's mouth finding Ori's even with their eyes closed. “Christ, I like you,” Fíli breathes against Ori's mouth. “I like you so much.”

“I've never liked anyone like I like you,” Ori replies, leaning into Fíli, inhaling. He smells the food, the beer. Fíli. Sandalwood and soap and sex. “Every time I'm around you, I just feel like I want to touch you, be with you, and -”

And Jacob had showed him how to balance a chequebook, how to pay the utilities. How to buy groceries on a budget. How to get wine stains out of carpet. How to fix the dishwasher. 

Why can't he want Jacob like he wants Fíli?

“Will you kiss me?” he asks, helpless.

“No,” Fíli says, “But you can kiss me.” 

God help him, he does. 

They have to leave Fíli's room eventually, but it's hard. It's so much easier to stay in the bed, beside Fíli, exchanging kisses until Ori's breathing gets short and he climbs on top of Fíli, straddling his hips. It's better, not enough just yet, but a slow build that Ori's enjoying. Or at least he is, until Fíli's phone rings. 

“Fuck,” he swears quietly, sitting up, but keeping Ori where he is with an arm around his waist while te other hand reaches out and grabs the mobile off the side table. “It's my mum. Have to take it, or she'll keep calling.” 

“It's all right,” Ori says, oddly content where he is. Fíli's lap is a nice place to be. “Should I get off?” 

Fíli's arm tightens around him as he slides his thumb down on the screen to answer. “Hello, Mum,” he says, and rolls his eyes at Ori. “No, you're not bothering me. What is it?” Despite being on the phone with his mother, his fingers find Ori's skin under his shirt, the spot that puts a shiver up Ori's spine. He keeps doing it, even though Ori can hear the woman talking, until Ori is aching to be closer. “Kíli is fine, Mum. He's taking his medicine and everything. Eating a lot of cereal, but his flatmate is feeding him real food.” 

“I can't afford to feed him as much as he eats,” Ori says, unthinking. 

Fíli raises his eyebrows, the phone silent, Ori's face hot. 

Then Fíli says into the phone, “I can explain, if you give me a minute to come up with something.” The voice finally starts talking again, and the teasing goes out of Fíli's face. “I don't think that's a good idea...It just isn't...because Kíli doesn't know yet. ...No, I know. I know. ...I'll handle it, Mum, all right? Yeah...I will.” The voice talks for a longer time, without pause, until Fíli says, “Mum, I'm hanging up...yeah, I lied. This is pretty awkward... I love you, bye.” 

He turns the volume down, and sets it aside, not looking so happy now, not meeting Ori's eyes at all. “My Mum wants to meet you. Says if you're taking care of Kíli, she should thank you, but that's not the real reason.” He still won't meet Ori's eyes, as he says, woodenly, “Get off me.” 

Ori does, and sits on the bed, his legs crossed under him. They don't talk, not for a few awkwardly long minutes, Ori waiting for what he knows Fíli is going to say. 

Finally, Fíli asks, “Did you break up with him?” When Ori can't look at him, it's enough of an answer. “I'm not going to be this guy. I can't.” 

“You didn't seem to mind before,” Ori says, twisting the ends of his shirt. “So don't think you get the moral high ground right now, because you don't.” He bites his lip, feeling his lungs squeeze, and tries to remember to breathe. “You didn't ask when I came in.” 

Fíli scratches at his neck. “No, guess I didn't.” 

Ori moves to get out of the bed, but Fíli stops him, pulling him back into his arms. “Stop,” Ori protests, sick. This is wrong, and he knows it, and Jacob will never forgive him. Or worse, he will, and Ori will feel even worse. “I don't know what to do. I don't know how to break up with him without hurting him.”

“Pretty sure if you keep sleeping with me behind his back, that's going to hurt you worse.” 

“What makes you think there's going to be a repeat?” Ori asks, finding some kind of sad humour in this. 

Fíli kisses him. “You saying there won't be?”

There will. They both know it. 

“Break up with him soon,” Fíli says, finding Ori's neck again. 

“All right,” Ori says, not sure how he can. What is going to say? How could he ever do this, how could he look Jacob in the face and tell him he didn't want him, had never wanted him, that Ori had made a mistake, had misunderstood the whole thing -

That there's a boy here -

That Ori had -

 _Twice now_ , in fact, Ori has betrayed him twice, and more than that -

Flirting, and letting Fíli touch him, and liking Fíli so much -

Lying.

Ori specializes in words, and he can't think of a single thing now. Other people's words are so easy, but when it comes to finding his own, he's struggling, and there's nothing, nothing at all inside of him except this swirling panic, and -

He can't breathe.

Fíli feels him shaking, and pulls back, looking at Ori, asking a question, but Ori doesn't have a voice any more. He can't breathe, he can't speak, he can't think at all, and his heart is going to burst, he knows it, this is going to kill him, it's going to -

It's not.

It's _not_ , he tells himself forcefully.

 _One hundred, ninety-seven, ninety-four, ninety-one,_ he thinks, his lungs on fire. _Eighty-eight, eighty-five, eighty-two, seventy-nine._

There's a hand on his back, pressing between his shoulder blades, not moving. Just there, anchoring him back to Earth, to his own body. The stranglehold around his throat loosens until finally, he can breathe again, his chest sore from the stress of it. He still can't speak, but he can breathe.

When Fíli gets off the bed, Ori starts to feel the creep of embarrassment. It would have been one thing to have an attack in front of Kíli, but Fíli is...Fíli was never supposed to see him like that. Not ever. 

Fíli is making tea, his back to Ori. He doesn't say anything until he comes back with a mug of tea, handing it to Ori. There's milk and sugar, not exactly how he takes it but close enough. Fíli has watched him make tea enough times to have the idea, he guesses. 

“Why aren't you surprised?” Ori asks, swirling the tea in the mug. He should be asking questions now, but he's not. He's as steady as he ever is, sitting on the bed beside Ori. 

“I found that prescription bottle in your room, when you were sick,” Fíli says. “Looked it up. Made sense.” 

“You had no right,” Ori protests, embarrassed. “And you could have just asked. You didn't have to go behind my back.” 

“Would you have told me, if I asked?” He has a point there. Ori shakes his head. His tea has warmed his fingers up and taken off the edge of the sting in his throat. “When I was looking it up, I found all this stuff about anxiety attacks. That's what that was?” Ori nods. “Was it my fault?”

“That's not really how it works,” Ori explains, hitching one shoulder. He's cold now, but he doesn't want to ask for anything else. It'll pass. “It used to happen randomly. That's why I had to take the medicine. I got really dependent on it though. I'm kind of...a nervous person.”

“I've noticed,” Fíli says dryly, side-eyeing Ori. 

Ori keeps looking at his tea instead of Fíli. “I started taking more than I was supposed to, because it made everything really nice. Kind of soft. And honestly, I probably needed the holiday after what happened. But I wasn't really enjoying anything any more. I wasn't happy. Just numb. And...she...my mum...”

Fíli touches him again at last, his hand on the back of Ori's neck. “It's all right.” He means Ori doesn't need to say it, and that's a relief, because he thinks if he tries, he'll be a wreck by the end of this conversation.

“I told Dori that he had to make me go to therapy, because if he didn't, I'd stop. And I had to have him control my dosage, he had to have the pills at all times, and the doctor started to reduce, like I wanted. It hurt, really bad at first, because I had to start actually trying to get better. To move past it. Deal with it.” It had been necessary, he knew, and he's glad he did it now, but it had been excruciating at the time, as all the sharp edges and problems came back. It's still too much sometimes. 

Like now. It's almost too much right now. But he'd rather have too much than nothing at all.

“I don't want to feel like that any more,” Ori says, wanting to curl into himself. He still has his tea though. “I want my head clear, even when things are awful. It's my choice. Just mine, and no one else's. And I hate how the medication makes me feel now. I don;t want to take it any more, not unless I have to.” 

“I can understand that,” Fíli says, taking Ori's mostly-empty cup from him and setting it on the counter. “Am I making things worse for you?”

“No,” Ori says, wanting to touch him, but not sure he should. “But you make them confusing. Good, most of the time. You make me happy. But confused.” He stands up, wanting to finish getting dressed. He'll feel better with all his clothes on, a barrier between him and the outside world.

Fíli gets up, coming closer, still half-dressed “Are you leaving?” 

“I have to,” Ori says, pulling his jeans up. He finds his socks and shoes by the bed, and gets them on, sitting on the floor to do it. Fíli is getting dressed too now, like he intends to follow Ori.

Ori isn't very inclined to stop him. 

“I should go to the shop,” Ori says, trying to think of a reason for why he's been gone so long. “We need some things.” Oh god, what if Kíli asks questions? Ori doesn't have answers, doesn't have anything but the truth. “I told Kíli I was coming over.” To give the book back, ostensibly. “If I come back with groceries, maybe...”

“I'll drive you,” Fíli offers, handing Ori his coat. “Don't start, it's raining, and Mum wants me to give you money for Kíli's stomach anyway.” 

Really, he wasn't even going to protest. He doubts he could handle the bus right now, but he can't go home, not like this. Not smelling like sex with no explanation for where he's been or who he's been with. At least if he has the groceries, Kíli will get distracted by food.

It's nice, to ride in a car again. Fíli's car is as clean as his room, nice too. Nicer than the one Dori and Elsa drive, more like the kind Nori had before prison. Older model though. Probably his mum or uncle's old car. The stereo system is brand new, complicated, with lights that shift colours in the dark overcast day. Pink to red to purple to blue to aqua to green to blue to purple to red. Ori finds himself watching it, while the rain beats on the windows and the windscreen wipers move back and forth in rhythm, steady like a heartbeat. Fíli drives easily, one hand on the gear lever, the other on the wheel, both hands moving when they need to while he looks ahead. 

“I don't know how to drive,” Ori confesses randomly, impressed by the skill. He had been such a mess when all his mates were learning, and neither Dori or Elsa thought he had the mind for it. They were right, of course. Even now, the idea of driving makes him twists his sleeves in his fingers. “How come you have a car, and Kíli doesn't?”

“Kíli can't drive either. Otherwise Mum would have a reason to get a new one.” He flicks the indicator up. “I want to kiss you, you know. All the time. And I know you want to kiss me too.” He exhales hard, turning the car when the light says he can. “I keep telling myself I'm better than this, but I'm not. I don't fucking care if you have a boyfriend. You're not with him, you're with me. We both know it.” 

Ori watches the stereo. Purple to red to pink. “Do you think you're the one who gets to decide that?”

“If you didn't want to be with me, you wouldn't be in this car right now.” 

He's very determined, Ori sees. It's in the set of his jaw, his eyes, staring ahead without flinching. “I could have another attack. Didn't used to take much, to set me off before.” 

“So tell me how to help you,” Fíli replies. “What you need me to do when you have them, how to keep them from happening. I'll listen.” He smirks. “You really think that's going to scare me off? Do you know what someone with ADHD is like when they're off their meds and they have an episode? Kíli put his fist through a door once when he was thirteen, and I had to hold him down so he wouldn't hurt Mum. _Kíli_. Mum took his mobile from him, and he went mad.” 

Ori can hardly believe that, but he doesn't think this is something Fíli would lie about. 

“I can deal with it, if you let me, and tell me how you want to handle things,” Fíli says. 

“What do you mean?”

“You don't want to be on medication, and I get that. Long as you're not a danger to yourself or anyone else, right? Those are the rules with this sort of thing. That's what everyone says. But that means you tell me what we have to do, what I need to do to make things easier for you.” 

Ori stares at him for longer than he'd like to admit. No one has ever said anything like that to him, never. It's always been people tiptoeing around him, wrapping him in cotton and never letting him speak. Everyone had been against him going off the medication, and he knows why, knows how scared they were. But no one ever asked what Ori wanted. Even Jacob had coddled him, when honestly, he had needed help. 

“Don't push me,” Ori says, still watching the stereo. “It's sudden, when it happens. But my therapist taught me how to calm down. If you just...what you did to me, where you touched me? I need that. I need to be anchored. But don't hug me, don't hold me down.” He licks his lips. “And I usually need something to drink after. And a blanket. I get cold, for some reason.”

He's never said any of that. Never. Acknowledging it was acknowledging it might happen, and that was too frightening. Not so much, in the car, with the rain rolling down the windows. 

“All right then,” Fíli says, tapping the steering wheel triumphantly. “I can do that.” 

The grocery store is too brightly lit, but it's mostly empty. Ori finds himself the oddly calm phase that always follows an attack after the adrenaline fades, like the sea after a storm. It's somewhat disconcerting, making him feel disconnected from what's going on around him. He could use that for an excuse as to why he lets Fíli put a hand on him in the store, where someone could see.

He could, but he doesn't, and they discuss vegetables and fruit and pasta and whether or not Ori should get chicken or pork. The pork is on sale, but Ori knows how to do more with chicken. Fíli ends up grabbing the chicken, and some beef besides, and putting them both in the basket. Ori hasn't had beef since he was home.

He gets some tofu too, Fíli frowning over it. “I hate tofu,” he says.

“Wait until I cook it,” Ori replies, and feels Fíli's fingers on his hip. They fit well there. 

“I don't need you to pay,” Ori says at the register, but Fíli swipes his card anyway. 

“Mum says Kíli's probably already eaten through your budget. It's the medicine. It makes him hungry.” Truthfully, Kíli _is_ starting to press on Ori's budget, but Ori hasn't felt comfortable asking him for money. “They're just glad someone is taking care of him.” 

It's strange, how easy it is to be like this in public with Fíli. Scary, because what if someone sees? But still easy. And what if someone sees? They don't know Ori. They don't know him at all, and there's freedom there.

The ride back to campus is short and quiet, Fíli's hand on Ori's thigh when it's not on the gear lever, and before long, they're sitting in the car park, the rain loud on the roof, making everything outside blurry. 

“He's been my best friend,” Ori says, not saying Jacob's name. He doesn't have to. “Everything I told you, what happened today, he was there for. He got me through it.” 

“You feel anything when he kisses you?” Fíli asks, tapping the steering wheel. 

“That's not the point,” Ori protests, but Fíli scoffs. “It's not.”

“So you just followed me upstairs that night because you really wanted to hear me argue maths?”

“I did.”

“You wanted to be with me,” Fíli says, talking right over him. “Don't lie to me, and don't lie to yourself. You came over today because you wanted me, and you know I want you.”

He had, it's true. It had been an itch under his skin, one he couldn't ignore any more. He wanted it. He still wanted it. And if it was just that, just sex, Ori thinks he wouldn't feel like such a bad person. It's not though. This is flirtation and interest and connection and so many other things Ori never understood until now. He liked Jacob, and Jacob liked him, and he's always thought that was it. 

Except it wasn't. 

“I don't know how to do this to him.” Ori can't hurt him, not like this. “I can't just send him some text, or e-mail. I can't.” But could he do it on Skype, or in person, any easier? No, maybe a letter would be better, somewhere he could write everything down without worrying about being too guilty to go through with it. “Maybe a letter.”

“There's enough songs about _Dear John_ letters to rival the Oz books,” Fíli says, his tone a bit brighter now. “You read those?”

“I like them,” Ori says, and can feel a dozen questions on the tip of his tongue, can already hear half of Fíli's opinions. Some of them are wrong, knowing him. “We'll talk about them next time.” Because just like that, Jacob is an afterthought. A far away thought, of no relation to this moment, to this at all.

 _Oh_ , Ori thinks, his mind clear for once. 

“So there's a next time now?” 

Ori nods, and reaches out, entangling their fingers. Fíli's are longer than his, but it's an easy fit. It encourages Fíli to lean over and kiss Ori, the rain obscuring them from anyone who might see. It's sort of wonderful, actually, despite the position. It feels like something Ori's been waiting to experience, kissing in a car, neither of them ready to leave each other just yet. There's a brightness to it that makes Ori smile, despite everything. 

He does have to get out of the car after awhile. There's milk in the bag. “I have to go inside,” Ori says, tipping his head a bit so Fíli can kiss his neck. “I really do.” 

“Just another minute,” Fíli cajoles, his hand dipping underneath Ori's shirt. 

“One more,” Ori agrees, but it's more like five, not that he minds. “You'll see me soon. And I promise not to have another attack and ruin it.”

“Promise not to send you into one,” Fíli replies. “And next time, tell me if I'm pushing you too hard. I'll stop. I promise. I never want to do that to you again.” 

“I told you, it wasn't you -,”

“Don't lie,” Fíli breathes against Ori's cheek, kissing him again. “Tell me, next time.”

“All right,” Ori agrees, finally pulling back, determined to get out of the car. Kíli will eat cereal again if Ori doesn't come in and start supper soon, and by eight, he'll be acting like the walls are closing in on him again. “I'll text you,” he promises, opening the door into the rain. He pulls his hood up, and takes the bag Fíli hands to him, but honestly, he just wants to get back in the car. 

Those are the sort of thoughts that lead to people having sex in the back seat, he's rather sure, so he shuts the door and keeps walking, until he's on the stairs. 

He has to write Jacob tonight. Has to explain himself, and what's happened. Tell the truth, so he understands. He won't like Ori any more, that's unavoidable, but he might eventually forgive him. 

When he unlocks the door, Kíli is looking at a box of cereal that belongs to one of their flatmates, reading the ingredients. 

“You put that down now, I'm not dealing with you shouting at everything in a few hours,” Ori snaps, scaring Kíli enough that he does it. “I'll start dinner, all right?” 

“Thank Christ, I'm starving,” Kíli says, shoving the box back in the cabinet. All of them are used to Kíli nicking their food now, but as long as he keeps buying beer, the other two don't mind. “Where you been, all day?” 

Ori puts the milk away, takes a breath, and says, “With Fíli.” 

Now sitting at the table. Kíli raises an eyebrow. “So you're sleeping with him?” He's never actually been struck speechless until this moment, looking at Kíli, who is only looking back at Ori with an entirely unimpressed expression. “My brother goes looking for you the morning after a party, where the last person I saw you with was with him, and when I tell him you've got a boyfriend, he looks like I've punched him in the gut. Then he keeps flirting with you, and wanting me out of the room when he's over, and _you_ keep turning that colour you're turning now.” He makes a gesture apparently indicating Ori's whole face, and how hot he feels. “I'm not actually stupid, you know.”

“I know,” Ori replies quickly, afraid Kíli thinks that Ori believes that. “I know you're not, I just -”

Kíli is grinning. “You two aren't as subtle as you think. But you didn't say nothing, so I didn't say nothing. Figured you'd tell me when there was something to say.” His face is slightly more judging when he says, “But I notice you're still with that boy back home.” When Ori still doesn't say anything, Kíli says, “We're friends, all right? But don't be playing my brother. He's an arsehole, but he's my brother.” 

“I'm not,” Ori assures him, getting the chicken out. “The party was...an accident. But now it's not.”

Kíli makes a face. “How exactly do you accidentally have sex with someone?” When Ori looks at him, he says, “Never mind, don't answer that when it concerns my brother.” 

Ori gets dinner started, intending on making some chicken with what seasoning they have. 

“You going to break up with that guy?” Kíli asks, not even trying to sound casual.

“Yes,” Ori answers, more resolved now. Why is he so arrogant as to think Jacob's whole world revolves around him, Ori? It most certainly doesn't. He'll be upset, but he won't be devastated, or anything so dramatic. Maybe he's met someone else too, and is just as conflicted. 

He's been wonderful to Ori, but that's because he's a good person. Ori isn't nearly as good, and he shouldn't think for a second that Jacob won't immediately find someone else, someone better, someone who really wants him, and be perfectly happy. No, he might even be relieved to have Ori do it, so he doesn't have to hurt Ori. Ori is much more perceivably fragile. Better Ori does it. 

The front door opens, and one of their other flatmates, Joseph, comes in, leaning over the bar. “Hello,” he says. “How are we both on this beautiful day?” He's as high as a kite, so Ori gives him a bottle of juice from the fridge. “Cheers,” he says, cracking it open. “What are we all discussing?”

“Whether Ori is going to pick my brother or his boyfriend,” Kíli says, sniffing distastefully. He hates the smell of weed, and Joseph reeks right now.

Joseph turns to Ori with wide eyes, his mouth agape. “What, you've been having it off with his older brother? Lucky you.”

“Hey,” Kíli calls, cringing. 

Their flatmate turns back to Ori, grabbing his hand emphatically. “No joke, I'm straight as an arrow, but if I had the chance to snog his brother, I'd be all over it.”

“Hey!”

“Have you _seen_ your brother?” Joseph demands, looking at Kíli. He tilts a bit, then says, “'Course, you're pretty fit yourself.”

“You sure you're straight?” Kíli asks, but Joseph is already toddling off to his own room, leaving the pair of them alone again. “Hello, repression. What do you wager he's already hooked up with a few lads when he's off his gourd?” 

“Be nice,” Ori replies, turning the heat on the chicken down so it will simmer, while he boils some water for rice. Brown rice, of course. Kíli's not supposed to have white rice, apparently. “You're not...you're not upset with me?” 

“I'm not exactly thrilled,” Kíli says, picking at his nails. “But it could be worse, I guess.”

“But I mean...” Ori starts, swallows. “Since I was...with someone else...”

“Shit happens.” He bites his nail, looking more uncomfortable than anything else. “Trust me, I haven't got the room to talk about anyone else. Besides, you make him pleasant, and that's half a miracle by itself.” 

Ori is minding the rice when Kíli asks, “You _are_ choosing my brother, right?”

“Have you seen your brother?” Ori teases, and gets hit with a balled-up napkin. 

After dinner, he sits down at his desk with pen and paper. 

He writes about school, about being far away. He writes about Jacob himself, mainly. How much Ori cares about him, how good he's been. He needs Jacob to know that this is all on Ori. Yet, when he comes to his confession, he hesitates. 

Jacob would be hurt if he knew.

Ori doesn't want to hurt him any more than necessary.

_I hope you'll forgive me, one day, but I understand that you won't like me for a long time. It's okay. It's not going to make me sick again, so you can be angry and dislike me you all you want. You don't ever have to talk to me again, actually, if you don't want to._

_I'm sorry. I really am._

He signs his name, and folds the letter, putting it in an envelope. Addresses it, stamps it. Then he walks downstairs, and puts it in the post, before he can change his mind.

It's almost midnight, the office quiet, the halls empty. 

“Sorry,” he says aloud, like it makes things any better.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fíli interlude.

“Mum,” Fíli calls, raising a hand to wave Dís over. He manages to get her attention the first time thankfully, and she takes the seat across from him, smiling in that stressed way of hers as she negotiates her coat and bag and self with the two chairs on her side of the table. 

“Where's your brother?” she asks, looking at the seat beside him. 

“He went to a supplemental lecture,” Fíli replies, attempting another sip of his beer.

His mother rolls her eyes. “Where is he?”

“Believe it or not, Kíli is actually at a supplemental lecture with his flatmate. Ori convinced him it would help him understand some art movement a little better.” Fíli had not been happy about being abandoned, but Kíli needed the help. Also, Fíli had made the unfortunate discovery that he wasn't very good at saying 'no' to Ori, and worse, so had Kíli. He fully expects that fact to come back and bite him. “He says he'll see you at the rugby match and that he loves you.” Because Kíli is a suck-up. 

“Ori?” his mother asks, raising an eyebrow. “That the one you're sleeping with?” 

“Subtle,” Fíli drawls, as she flags down a server. His mother claims often she's had enough pub food to last her a lifetime and a half, so she always has them meet her at an actual restaurant. This one is going for some kind of elegant farmhouse look, with scrubbed wooden tables and chairs, whitewashed walls, potted herbs, and skylights. There's something pretentious about it, but Fíli supposes it doesn't matter if the food is decent. “It's not like that.”

“So what exactly were you two doing before I rang? Playing cards?” She's challenging him to lie, but he's not nearly that stupid. Lying to his mother has never gotten him anything other than a smack upside the head, and frankly, he's getting a little old for it. At least in public. 

“Ma'am?” A server has noticed them at last. “How might I help you?” 

Dís and Fíli both order, his mother ordering a bottle of wine for them as well. His mother is nothing if not generous, even when she's out for blood. Especially when she's out for blood. “So, my love, how is it?” 

“We met a month ago. I didn't know he was Kíli's flatmate, just knew they were friends. And then, you know...” He waves his hand meaningfully while his mother makes a disgusted face. “Mum, I'm nineteen.” 

“I raised such slags,” she exclaims to herself, Fíli rolling his eyes. “You're being safe, right? We don't need to have the talk again?” 

“Yes, Mum, thank you, you have made this sufficiently awkward and horrible. I applaud you.” Fíli sets his beer down, more unhappy with it than the conversation. “What the fuck is with these places and terrible beer?” 

“Language,” she says, taking the glass. She takes a sip, and makes a face. “Christ, that's awful.” 

“Language,” Fíli mocks, right as the server returns with their wine. His mother hands the beer to them, telling them she wouldn't be paying for some swill calling itself beer. Smart man, the server takes it with a smile and no argument. “It's not what you think.” 

“So, explain,” she says, gesturing with one hand while she raises her glass with the other. “Go on, I'm listening.”

“You don't want to hear about my classes, or rugby?” Fíli asks, taking one last stab at avoiding this. His mother is going to find out the truth, and he's not looking forward to the lecture. 

“You're making your classmates look like idiots, and you're the inside centre on the best university rugby club in England, despite only being a second-year. Basically, you're still my overachiever.” She raises her glass to him before taking a rather long sip. “The boy though, that's new. That, I want to hear about.” She narrows her eyes, not giving him an inch.

Fíli winces, hoping his brain will finally give him the right spin to put on the story. No such luck. There's no way he can make this sound like anything other than what it was. “Mum....”

“You've never made that face over a boy. _Ever._ ” The look she's giving him doesn't bode well. That's the look he and Kíli get when they've done something and think she doesn't know. “Must have been a hell of a party, especially considering the scratch in my Homura.” When Fíli looks at his own wine, trying to work out how he could turn this into Kíli's fault, she adds, “Did you two really think you could get the smell of party out in one day?” 

“I was hopeful,” Fíli admits, giving up the ghost. “And I don't really know how the party went. I was outside, smoking for half the night, and by the time I came in, Ori was in the kitchen, and...” He waves a hand again. “We went upstairs. Had a drink. Listened to music.” When his mother winces and takes a _very_ long sip of her wine, Fíli laughs. She wants to know, he'll tell her, but she always regrets it when he and Kíli start giving details. “He's not like anyone else I've ever been with. He's smart, really smart, even though he doesn't think he is. We have a lot in common.” He pauses, takes a sip of his own wine. “A lot.”

His mother narrows her eyes. “I'm really not amused by your attempts to be mysterious.” 

“Mum...”

“Don't think you can hide things from me, Fíli, I gave birth to you.” She's not backing down on this. 

Fíli takes another bracing sip. “His mum was...like Dad. When he was fourteen.” His mother's teasing expression fades, and she finishes her glass, pouring herself another. “And he's different from me, but we've experienced a lot of the same things. We just...” He takes another drink, feeling guilty for the look on his mother's face. “Christ, Mum, I talk to him, and I don't feel...I don't feel like I'm walking on eggshells.” That's an odd way to phrase things. He is careful about how he treats Ori now that he knows about Ori's issues, but it's not how he's always had to be with people before. “We can talk about it. I don't have to pretend it didn't happen, or that it didn't change me. He gets it, without me having to explain. We can just talk.” And it's not a _thing_. It's not Ori trying to fix Fíli or vice versa. It's them understanding this event that happened, this hurricane that upended their lives and left its scars. “And we have other things in common, not just that. Like I said, we can talk.” 

“All right,” his mother concedes that point at least. “He's also a year or more younger than you. At your ages, that's not a small difference in maturity. And more, he's Kíli's flatmate.” 

“He's not like Kíli,” Fíli says, not meaning any offence to his brother. Kíli's not irresponsible, or anything. Just eighteen. “I think he might be out of my league in terms of maturity, actually.” He can't imagine being responsible for a parent, for his own mother. Paying bills, taking care of a house at that age. “Mum, I really like him.” 

She smiles. “I know.” 

“You're being creepy,” Fíli tells her over his glass. 

“Carried you for nine months, gave birth to you, and raised you for almost twenty years now.” She leans over the table. “You can't hide from me,” she hisses, playing the part of the villain, but the sparkle in her eyes ruins the effect, and Fíli laughs. “So, when do I get to meet him? You could have brought him today, even!”

Fíli swirls his glass, thinking. “Soon, but not today. He has some issues, and he has to be eased into things. I can't just spring you on him.” 

“What, like your dad?” she asks, right as the server returns with their food. 

“No,” Fíli says, shaking his head. “He's not up and down, or anything. I think it's just an anxiety disorder of some sort.”

“Oh,” his mother nods, her expression more serious. “So he is like Bifur?”

“No, not really. He says it can be random.” Fíli eats, sorry to admit his garlic chips are in fact great. He hates it when he likes the chips in nice places. Chips are pub food. “How is Bifur?”

“Working,” Dís says, cheery again. “And doing much better. The doctors have him on a new drug, and in a new therapy, and it's...god, Fíli, I can hardly believe it. He's so much more like he was before. He's still having his language issues, but his mind is much more steady.” 

That makes Fíli smile, genuinely relieved. “No episodes?”

“We've been careful.” She sighs, her food so far untouched. “Random? So anything could set him off?” 

“No, nothing like that,” Fíli replies, setting his glass aside. Ori had told him that the episode he'd had with Fíli had been the first in a long time. He seemed afraid it meant that more were soon to follow. “I would have asked him to come today, but he's already a little too stressed. I don't think he would have enjoyed this.” 

“School?”

If only. He can help with school, but not this. “No, his ex. Bloke keeps trying to contact him, and it's making him anxious.” Fíli's been worried, honestly. More than one time over the past week Ori has let Fíli bring Ori's legs up over his lap, kiss him and hold him, when there were books waiting to be read, studying to be done. It hadn't been about sex, not once, just Ori seeming to need Fíli to hold him. He's seen how many times Ori's mobile rings, how many unanswered texts there are. Ori had told him he had sent a letter but it had apparently not answered all Jacob's questions. 

“Something to be worried about?” 

“No, just break-up stalking,” Fíli says, the term he and his cousins and brother always used to describe the way the person broken up with tended to cling, look for answers, whatever that meant. “It's upsetting Ori.” Which means it's upsetting Fíli and Kíli both, which doesn't spell out a good future for Jacob. Getting on both their bad sides is incredibly unlucky. 

His mother is frowning, thinking. “Fíli, my love, just how long ago was this break-up?” 

Fíli's never been any good at lying to her, so he doesn't bother. Besides, he's pretty sure she already knows the truth. She always does. Instead of trying, he finishes his glass, and pours himself another.

“ _Fíli_ ,” his mother hisses when he doesn't answer. “Was there an overlap?” 

“Yeah,” Fíli draws the word out, looking down at his plate. “There might have been a small one.”

His mother glares.

“...He might have still been with his boyfriend the first time.” He coughs. “He broke up with him that day you called.”

“Before or after?” she asks. Fíli doesn't meet her eyes, and Dís groans, and drains her glass. 

“He's not a slag, Mum.” Fíli doesn't want her to get the wrong idea. “He was torn up over the first time, but I...I couldn't let it go. I pursued. He came clean with me immediately, tried to stay away, but I -”

“You decided you wanted your way,” she interrupts, exhaling as she finally starts on her chicken. “Guess you got it.”

“He liked me better,” Fíli insists, finishing off his chips. “He picked me.” He picked Fíli. Even when he was still with Jacob, he kept letting Fíli close, sitting up with him long after Kíli had gone to bed to talk about music, or art, or even engineering, because that could be hours of explaining. Ori loved seeing the significance in buildings, knowing the history behind different sorts. 

And always, Fíli could hook his ankle around Ori's could touch the back of his neck. He could see the moment Ori realized Fíli was touching him, the way a smile would start to tug up the corners of his mouth. Every time, Fíli wanted to kiss him, was sure Ori would let him. 

But it never took long for Ori to remember that Fíli wasn't his boyfriend.

“After you went after him in your usual bullheaded way,” Dís says.

“Mum, the bloke is in Exeter,” Fíli says, taking the last of the wine. “And he doesn't get Ori. I do. He wants to be with me. He picked me. What does it matter?”

“It matters to me that you're being rather cavalier about the fact you stole someone's boyfriend.” 

“All right, no, don't do this to me, Mum.” Fíli's not listening to this. He's not guilty, and he doesn't think he has a reason to be. “I didn't steal anything. Ori's not a thing. And I don't owe his ex a damn thing. Ori likes me better, he's chosen to be with me. That's the end of the story, all right?”

“Fíli, you have always been this way,” Dís says, not dropping it. Never dropping it. “You decide you want something, and you don't care who you hurt to get it. I have tried to explain this to you, time and time again. You cannot go through life like this, you have to consider other people -”

“Mum -”

“No, don't _Mum_ me, you're almost twenty years old, you're not a child any more. You can't act like one, not now.” She flags the server, and points to the empty bottle. “Fíli, one affair, one cock-up, and your career could be over before it gets started. Your uncles and I worked hard to rebuild our life here, to give you and Kíli a _chance_. You wouldn't have had one at home. You would be dead, if we had stayed there.”

He sort of wants a cigarette. “I was born here, Mum.” He's so tired of this. “I'm English.”

“You can say that all you like,” his mother says, shaking her head. “But it's not the whole truth, and you know it well.”

“I am considering other people,” Fíli says, settling back in his chair with particularly bad posture. “I consider other people all the time. This one time, I wanted something for me, and I went after it. I like the way he makes me feel, and I like the way I make him feel.” He likes the way Ori enjoys his company, likes the way Ori fiddles with his sleeves when he's thinking, how he's prone to sudden bursts of words when he's particularly worked up. He likes the way Ori hums when he's cooking, the way he presses the tips of his fingers against Fíli's jaw when they're kissing, the way he settles in the crook of Fíli's arm when he's reading. Like he was always meant to be there, like Fíli was made for him to lean against. 

He might be a little in love, and that sort of terrifies him. At least it did when he was just the slightest bit afraid Ori wasn't going to pick him. 

“Mum, it's not...he likes me. I didn't force that on him, and he had the chance to change his mind. He came to me.” Ori had come to him. He'd known why Fíli left the copy of _Flatland_ in his room, and he'd still come. Come and confessed and kissed Fíli back, parting his legs when Fíli asked without words. Come to bed with Fíli and tugged on Fíli's shirt, kissed him after Fíli was bare-chested. 

He'd wanted Fíli. Fíli hadn't made that up. 

“He broke up with him, and he's with me,” Fíli says firmly. “It's not that unusual at uni.” 

“You should have waited,” Dís presses, but Fíli won't be swayed. “Fíli...”

“No, Mum.” He _really_ wants a cigarette. It's an odd habit of his. He's not a smoker, not really. But every now and then, he likes to sit outside and smoke and think. “You'll like him when you meet him, promise.” 

“I'm sure I will,” Dís says. “Looking after Kíli like he has, making you fall half in love with him, I already like him. But that doesn't mean I approve of either of your actions. He was in a relationship, and you knew he was. You both did wrong.” 

“I don't know what you want from me. It's done. I can't change it now.” His mother shakes her head, her disapproval obvious. “Mum, please don't be cold to him. It'll hurt him.” He would doubt himself more than anything, and Fíli finds he actually can't stand the idea of Ori hating himself. “Please.”

“Oh yes, I'm going to be a horrid old dragon to the boy who makes you smile,” Dís scoffs. “I said I didn't approve of how you two got started. That doesn't mean I won't approve of you two together.” Her expression softens, and Fíli groans. “Is he coming to the match this weekend?”

“He said he would,” Fíli says. 

“Well then, he can sit with me and your uncle, and we can get to know him.” 

She's serious. 

“No.” 

“Oh, my sweet boy, you think you have a say in this?” She pats his hand consolingly. “I'll just ask Kíli if you refuse. And he can come to supper after. Give us a chance to really chat.”

From furious to vindictive in a second. “You're mad.” 

“Better he learns that now,” she says, somewhat cheery, as the server brings the second bottle. “Seems you want him around for awhile, after all.” 

“Mum, it might come to nothing -”

She raises her glass, stopping him in his half-hearted attempt. “It's so sweet that you two still think you can lie to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you spill your full glass of red on the carpet, and you have that horrified moment of:
> 
> "The _wine_!"
> 
> "And oh, yeah, the carpet."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a climax happens!

It's a bright, sunny day by the time the next rugby match rolls around, but still too cold for Ori to be comfortable in anything less than a cardigan and a knitted scarf and hat and mittens. Even then, he's still chilly following Kíli down to the pitch. The sun is just barely peeking through the buildings, so hopefully by the time it's higher it'll be warmer. Not likely, but maybe. 

“You're going to love this,” Kíli promises, an arm around Ori's shoulders. “This is a real match, not like the scrimmages, and this is real rugby, not like what you watched in school.”

“I've never liked it before,” Ori reminds him, struggling to keep up with Kíli's longer stride. He's not much bothered about being short, but it can be somewhat inconvenient at times. “You think just because you're playing I will?”

“I think your boyfriend is playing, and that'll give you something to cheer for,” Kíli teases, tugging him along. “I am of course the most important factor though, no lie.”

Ori reddens, ducking his head. “I'll cheer for you,” he promises. 

“Well, you'll have company,” Kíli says, pulling Ori in tight so he can't escape as they enter the pitch. 

“Kíli, what did you do?” Ori hisses, right as a woman, tall, black-haired and blue-eyed approaches them. “ _Kíli_.”

“Mum!” Kíli says, still holding Ori tight. “This is Ori! Remember, I said I'd bring him.” 

Apparently, set-ups run in the family. “I hate you,” Ori whispers.

“Oh, I'm not that bad,” the woman assures him, taking him by the elbow. Apparently lack of personal space also runs in their family. “My name is Dís, in case Tweedledum and Tweedledee haven't told you. And you and me are going to get on just fine, I'm sure.” 

“You don't really have a choice,” Kíli says, heading off towards the changing rooms. “Have fun!”

“I'll poison him,” Ori says to himself, disbelieving.

“If I were you, I'd go after my other son. This was his grand idea,” Dís says, with a wink when Ori looks up at her. “C'mon then, get your breath back. I'm not quite the dragon they've painted me out to be. I promise not to bite, at the very least.”

She doesn't relinquish her grip on Ori, leading him as easily as Kíli does until they find seats beside a dark-haired, blue-eyed man with hard features, eating a bag of Swedish fish. “Oi, Thorin, those were mine!” Dís accuses, releasing Ori to grab at them.

“I paid for them,” Thorin argues, pulling it out of her reach. “So they're more mine, really.” He looks Ori up and down, vaguely interested. “You the lad feeding Kíli?” Ori nods tightly. “Sorry about that. But once you feed him, he's yours. No returns.” 

Dís rolls her eyes, sitting by her brother and gesturing for Ori to sit by her. “Don't mind him,” she says. “But no, you did feed him, he's yours now.” When Ori just frowns, she laughs. “That said, I'll have him pay for the groceries from now on. I did wonder why there weren't many charges on the card.”

“Oh, no, you don't have to -” Ori's embarrassed, because truthfully, he needs the money, but asking for it is just humiliating. He doesn't want them to think his family is destitute or anything.

“I've seen my son eat,” Dís cuts him off, her arm around him again. She's wearing perfume, simple and expensive, and for some reason, it reminds Ori of his own mother. He's not sure why it does, but his heart clenches all the same. “And I'm grateful you're helping him stay on his regiment. If it weren't for you, he'd be eating processed cereal and skipping class to go stare at trees for hours. So let me show that gratitude by making sure you can afford the vegetables and the good meat, all right?” 

Ori doesn't think he should argue. She doesn't seem like the sort of person who likes being argued with. 

Thorin offers Ori the candy, his eyes on the pitch. Ori shakes his head, because frankly, Swedish fish are gross, but Dís takes the opportunity to snatch the bag for herself. Her brother seems more interested in the match any way, though nothing's happening yet. 

“So, how old are you?” Dís asks, smiling. “Kíli's age?”

“Eighteen,” Ori confirms, watching his hands in his lap instead of her. “You're both engineers?” 

“Aye,” she answers. “What about you? What do your parents do?” 

Fíli and Kíli haven't told her. _Of course_ they haven't, they would never go around telling someone else's secrets. 

In the bright morning sunshine, with all the excitement going on, it's more awkward than anything else. He's never actually had to tell another adult about his parents. Everyone at home had known about his mother and father, their problems, their ends. They all just knew. 

“My mother worked at a bank,” Ori says. “She um, she managed accounts, or something. My father did odd jobs.” The sort that landed him in prison, but he'd rather not disclose that. “My brother, he and my sister-in law own a bakery. Well, it's not just a bakery any more. They still make everything on site, but they expanded, so now it's a cafe too, and they serve coffee and tea and wine. Musicians come play. It's very nice.” Much nicer than _odd jobs_ , or _I don't know_. 

“You lived with them?” Dís has that same understanding look Kíli makes when he realizes he's accidentally tread on something delicate with Ori. “I'd wager they put you to work young?” Again, she's found a soft spot. Ori hadn't been able to handle the people in the cafe by the time he was old enough to work, and after, his medicine had made it hard to handle something so involved. He'd managed in the past few months, but neither Dori or Elsa like him working more than one day a week, a slow day. Monday or Tuesday nights, Sunday mornings.

“No,” Ori answers, shaking his head. “I had school.” That had been another excuse. They wanted Ori to concentrate on his exams. “Besides, who wants to work for their older brother?” It's his attempt at a joke, and it makes Dís laugh, but Fíli and Kíli's uncle raises an eyebrow. 

“What's wrong with that?” he asks, looking at his sister. 

That just makes Dís laugh more, as Ori reddens. He knew they worked for the same firm, but he didn't realize Dís worked for her brother. 

“The match is starting,” Ori says, nodding at the pitch. “Are Fíli and Kíli both playing? They didn't tell me. I know they play in the practices, but Kíli's only a first year.” 

“They'd be fools not to let them play, especially together,” Thorin says, as the players take positions. 

“Why?” 

“Watch,” Thorin directs, nodding down at the players.

About ten minutes later, Ori has his answer, as the brothers clasp hands on the field, grinning triumphantly at one another. “What just happened?” he asks, confused. He'd never had much of a head for sport, especially rugby. “Did they score?” 

“No, that's not their job,” Dís explains, pointing out onto the pitch. “Well, you know anyone can score, forwards or backs, and Fíli used to play winger, but...” She trails off, correctly reading Ori's complete lack of knowledge. He's not even really that interested, to be honest, he just wants to be able to follow along. “All right, let's try this. Fifteen players, anyone can score. Fíli is fast and tall, so he used to be the one supposed to score, but he's much better at knocking heads, so now his job is to get the ball, and organise the defence. Kíli is a utility player right now, means he's reserve. He's only playing because two of the other lads are sick. That means he can play any position, but right now, he's the other centre.”

Ori is still rather confused. “So Kíli wouldn't usually play?” 

“No, but he should be,” Thorin says. “Fíli and Kíli work best together. They're a better asset to the team that way.” 

“The other players aren't slouches,” Dís reminds him. “Kíli will get his chance. Fíli was reserve last year, and they already moved him up.” There's a lot of standing around going on down on the pitch now, and Ori starts to reach for his book. He's not sure he should be bored in front of Dís and Thorin though.

“Have they always played rugby?” he asks, for something to do. 

“Me and my brother played,” Thorin says, glancing at Ori. “And so did their father. We all played with the same club. The boys could kick a ball before they could talk.” 

“Usually right through something valuable,” Dís adds, rolling her eyes at Ori. Thinking of Fíli and Kíli as children, running around breaking things, actually makes him smile. “You play any sport?”

“No,” Ori shakes his head. “I was always too small, and I got sick a lot. My mum and my brother didn't want me getting hurt. And I'm not very coordinated any way.” 

“Might be more coordinated if they'd let you play,” Thorin says, but the match is starting up again, so he loses interest in Ori, eyes back on the players. 

This time, Fíli does score, and their side of the pitch cheers. “I thought you said he wasn't supposed to score,” Ori says to Dís, trying to hold his cardigan tighter around himself. It's too big, and the buttons keep slipping out of the holes now, it's so old. 'That he was supposed to get the ball.” 

“He had an opening,” Dís dismisses.

“He's showing off,” Thorin contradicts, frowning.

“Because you're here?” Ori asks, but Dís' raised eyebrows and Thorin's deepening frown answer that. Embarrassed, he shrinks further into himself, hating Fíli and Kíli both for putting him in this position. He's no good at this, and the crowd is so big and loud and pressing around him. “Excuse me,” he mutters, standing, holding his bag tight. “I'll be back.” 

Maybe not. 

Once outside the pitch, and away from all the people, Ori finds a quiet place he can breathe. It's still too cold out, and he's shivering before long. Maybe he could go back to the flat, and just meet them all after the match. He doesn't know when the match is over though. And he can't just run away from Dís, she's their mother. 

But he can stay outside for a little bit. 

His mobile buzzes, but when he sees the name on the message, he just puts it away again. Jacob has been sending him maybe six or seven messages a day since Ori sent the letter. That was four days ago, so it has to have arrived by today. Telling Dori his decision had been somewhat easier, with just a five word text that had been followed by an hour and a half long Skype call where he had to repeatedly assure Dori he felt fine, and maybe told a little white lie about not having one attack since he came here.

Eventually, Elsa, more shrewd and less likely to believe Ori or Nori were completely blameless in the world, had finally leaned over onto the screen, and asked, “What's his name?” 

Dori had sputtered, and asked what she was talking about, but she had kept looking at Ori through the screen, one eyebrow arched, waiting until Ori finally said, “Fíli.” 

That had calmed Dori down considerably at the very least. Breaking up with Jacob for another boy was at least normal.

He had told Jacob he needed some time to himself, but beyond that, he hasn't been able to talk to him. If he does, it's either all going to come pouring out, or he's not going to be able to get a word out. It certainly won't be controlled, whatever way it goes, and he absolutely cannot tell Jacob any of the truth; that Ori slept with Fíli behind his back, that Ori lied to him, that Ori's been cheating on him, that he's already with Fíli. 

This time his ringtone sounds, and he knows Jacob got the letter. He never actually rings unless Ori tells him to. 

He dismisses the call. He made a promise to her, to try and be happy and have a life, and now he's going to keep it. 

The air is so cold it stings when he takes a deep breath and exhales a cloud. It makes him think of cigarettes, of Nori, and all that money in his bank account. Maybe he should try and ring him, see if he's anywhere near here. Sometimes he goes north, when he gets restless. Dori had said he was still working at the pub, but that might not even be true by now. Nori leaves on a whim, without so much as a good-bye half the time. 

He can still hear everyone in the pitch, and he absolutely needs to go back in now. He's spent thirty minutes out here, and the therapist had told him over and over he had to try and force himself through these kind of situations. Find an anchor in the crowd, a safety, and cope. 

His mobile rings again. 

There's a moment he's tempted to answer, crawl back in his comfort zone and stay there forever. Just a moment though, and instead he dismisses it again and goes back in. He almost regrets it, but it feels better to remind himself that he can handle this now, even if he couldn't before. He's getting better, step by step, and he just has to keep walking. 

The crowd cheers again as Ori rejoins Dís and Thorin. Thorin doesn't acknowledge him at all, but Dís looks at him with a worried crinkle between her eyes. “You all right?” 

He nods, and can see she doesn't believe him. Lying to mothers is always impossible. But she doesn't ask either, instead cheering when on the pitch, Fíli takes out another player entirely, the opposing boy flat on his back in the grass while another player from their team rushes forward, and puts the ball through the end posts. 

“They can't catch up now,” she says triumphantly, clapping Ori on the shoulder. “You're not allergic to anything, are you? They boys didn't know. I'm not much of a cook, but there's some excellent take-away around the house.” 

“I'm not,” Ori replies, confused. “Why?” 

Dís narrows her eyes. “I raised idiots,” she mutters to herself. 

“She means you're coming over with the boys for dinner,” Thorin says, looking over at them now that the play has stopped. “Don't argue. You won't win. Trust me.” 

Ori doesn't doubt that. She's their mother after all, and neither of them are good at taking no for an answer. So he nods, and looks back at the pitch. It seems the match is winding up, the other team not likely to win at this point, but blocking their team from scoring any more. Ori doesn't know enough to even know if Fíli and Kíli are as good as their mother and uncle seem to think, but they're definitely doing what Dís said they were supposed to. 

In his pocket, his mobile buzzes again, so he pulls it out and dismisses it. Within a moment, it's buzzing again. 

“Someone needs to talk to you,” Dís observes. 

Ori shrugs and turns the mobile off. Maybe then he'll get the hint. Ori isn't ready to talk, doesn't think they can have this conversation over a call. Doesn't know when he'll ever be ready to have this conversation. 

“Not your brother, is it?” she asks. Ori shakes his head, blowing on his fingers to get them warm. 

“No. If I ignored his call, he'd be here on the next train.” He's not sure Elsa would even stop him if Ori had ignored their calls for four days. She'd be beside herself. “Oh, is it over?” 

Everyone around them is cheering, and their team is huddled together, chanting something. Ori's honestly never understood this sort of thing, though he'd wished to in school. He's settled enough in his own interests to not mind any more at this point, but he never thought he'd be dating a rugby player. Does Fíli want to talk about this sort of thing with him? 

People are starting to file out around them, but Dís and Thorin seem content to wait, both of them checking their mobiles. “Do we just sit here?” he asks, hoping one of them answers. 

“The boys have to shower and change,” Dís says, frowning at something on the screen. 

That seems to be the extent of the answer, so Ori gets his book out and reads a bit, starting to shiver after about five minutes. Another fifteen pass before Kíli texts him and says he and Fíli are waiting by the entrance. By then, Ori feels half frozen, and wishes he had a real coat, anything. He needs to go buy one as soon as possible, dip into Nori's present. If anything is an emergency, it's this. Ori never knew cold could get this damn _cold_.

Fíli and Kíli are in just jeans and hoodies, damn them. 

When Fíli grins at him though, some of his bitterness bleeds away, disappearing entirely when he springs forward and grabs Ori around the waist, actually lifting him up off the ground and spinning them. “We won,” he announces, for once grinning _up_ at Ori.

“You did,” Ori agrees, smiling, his heart thudding against his sternum. 

“Did you see me score?” he's still holding Ori up, and that _absolutely_ should not make his heart race even more, especially not in front of Fíli's mother. 

Ori nods, pressing his palms against Fíli's chest. “You can put me down now, please.”

“As you wish,” Fíli says, half-mocking. He's quoting _Princess Bride_ again, and Ori would smack him if they weren't in front of Dís and Thorin. He and Kíli are awful about that film, and if Ori had known, he never would have suggested watching it the other night. He puts Ori down, either way, but keeps his arm around Ori's waist as he finally acknowledges his mother and uncle. 

Kíli is pulling back from kissing his mother on the cheek. “ _I_ still love you, Mum.” 

“Suck up,” Fíli sneers, kissing Ori's temple. “Hello, Mum, Uncle.”

“Come on then, I think he gets a proper kiss after he scored a goal for you,” Dís says to Ori, teasing, clearly teasing. “We'll even turn around if you like.” 

She's only joking, Ori _knows_ she's only joking, but they had both seemed so annoyed during the match when Fíli did it. They won the match too, so they can't really be upset. But Ori still feels wrong-footed, uncomfortable. 

“Mum, stop,” Fíli says, good-natured, but there's a firmness to it. “We won, didn't we?” 

“There were a dozen ways that could have gone wrong,” Thorin lectures, gesturing. “Fíli, this is university, and this school is one of the best for rugby. Real teams watch these matches.” This argument seems old, with the way Fíli feels against Ori, Kíli huffing. Their mother seems to be on Thorin's side, which tells Ori a lot. “You're only in your second year, and you're already a centre for them. You have talent, but if it looks like you're a show-off, no one will want to recruit you.” 

“I swear, I could quote this lecture from memory,” Kíli says, scratching his head. 

“But it worked,” Fíli replies. He frowns, looking down at Ori. “Are you shivering?” 

“I don't own a coat,” Ori says, curling further into him. The body heat is definitely helping, but his mind is fighting between being close in front of Dís and Thorin, and being comfortable. He loves being in Fíli's space, being able to bury his face in Fíli's shoulder and inhale, holding him, being held. 

Just...not in front of his mother. 

“Who sent you up here without a coat?” Dís demands, no longer teasing. “You're going to get hypothermia when winter gets here without a proper coat!” She elbows Kíli hard, Kíli wincing and rubbing his side. “Aren't you taking care of him? He's taking care of you.” 

“Mum,” Kíli groans. “Fíli's his boyfriend now, shout at him.”

“You live with him,” Dís says, and Kíli huffs. 

“Mum, stop Mumming,” Kíli begs, hanging off her.

Ori's shoes are interesting. The pavement is interesting. The grass around the edges of his vision is interesting. Anything at all is so much more interesting than having to look up at these two people with Fíli's arm around him like this, like Ori should be completely comfortable in their presence, and he just...

He shrugs out from under Fíli's arm, making a show of turning his mobile back on and checking it. “I really need to get started on my reading,” Ori says, loud enough they can hear him. “I told you, I had to get through those French poems.”

“You said you had to have it done by next week Thursday,” Fíli says, raising an eyebrow. He's turned towards Ori now, making their conversation a little more private. 

“Yeah, but I should go, I mean, your family is here...” 

“Which is the whole point,” Fíli argues, but his shoulders slump. “Right. All right, just a tic.” He turns back to his mother, and very casually says, “Sorry, not tonight. Ori's behind on his reading. My fault, really, should have checked.”

They don't believe him, and it digs at Ori, makes him feel rude and awful. This is their mother, and their uncle, and he can't even be normal for this. “Sorry,” he says aloud, but it's not enough. Dís is frowning, and Thorin looks harder now. They don't like him. Of course they don't. “Um, I'm going to...” He makes a vague gesture towards the dorms. “It was lovely to meet you. I'm sorry I have to go. But...um...have fun?” This he says brightly to Fíli and Kíli, before turning back towards the dorms. 

“I'll walk you,” Fíli offers, but Ori shakes him off. 

“They've come to see you,” he says, smiling, or trying to. “I'm just going to go get started on that reading. I'll see you when you get back.” 

He doesn't give Fíli a chance to respond, pulling away and leaving before anyone can say anything else. His mobile is ringing again, but he ignores it, pretends it's not happening, pretends none of it is happening. Neither Fíli or Kíli come after him, which helps.

Nothing helps at all when he unlocks his door and finds Jacob in his living room.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tell the truth.

“How did you...?” Ori can't breathe, can't handle any of this. “What are you doing here?”

“Your flatmate let me in,” Jacob says, standing. “And really? What am I doing here? After you send me that damn letter, you're asking me what I'm doing here?” When Ori doesn't answer, Jacob rakes his hands through his hair, muttering something Ori can't understand. “Jesus, I took the bloody train. I got your letter, and got on the train. And where have you been all morning? You don't have classes today.”

Ori shrugs, his chest hollow. “The rugby match.” 

“Why?” Jacob would ask that. When had Ori ever liked rugby? He doesn't. He just likes Kíli. And Fíli. But Jacob is here. He can't like Fíli with Jacob here. “Ori, answer me, damn it.”

“But why would you come up here? I told you, in the letter, I said I wanted to end things, that we were far away, that we should, that you should, that -” He takes in a deep breath and goes into the kitchen, opening the fridge for something to do. He shuts it just as quickly, and backs up to lean against the counter. “Why are you here?” 

Jacob has followed him into the kitchen, is in his space, caging Ori in, and oh, Fíli does this, but Ori likes it when he does. “Because we've been together for four years, Ori, and I love you! And you sent me some damn letter, and you didn't even give me a reason!”

“I told you!” 

“No, you gave me some gobshite line about you wanting me to 'live my own life' and all that rubbish. Not an actual explanation.” His head dips down, Ori turning away. “Love, that's not a reason. What's going on? Are you all right? You're not feeling like...like your mother...?”

Everything turns sharp-edged and angry, angrier than Ori's been in a long time. “Why would you ask me that?” he demands, his voice raised. “Why would you _ever_ ask me that? I've never been like her, never, and you know that, you know I've never been like her -”

“I don't know anything, Ori, because you never tell me anything!” Jacob reminds him, still too close, still in Ori's space, in his flat, and he hates it, he hates feeling like he has no control at all, like everyone is just invading and making choices and -

 _One hundred, ninety-seven, ninety-four, ninety-one, eighty-eight, eighty-five, eighty-two, seventy-nine, seventy-six, seventy-three, seventy, sixty-seven,_ he counts internally, relaxing his grip on the counter top. _Sixty-four, sixty-one, fifty-eight, fifty-five, fifty-two, forty-nine._ His chest isn't aching as much, with his eyes closed tight and the numbers in his head, his breath slowing. 

When he opens his eyes, Jacob is watching him fearfully, his hands out like he means to touch Ori. “Where's your medication? I'll go fetch it, just wait, all right?”

“I don't want it,” Ori says, shaking his head. “And I don't need it right now.” 

“Your doctor said -”

“My doctor said it was my choice!” Ori shouts, and Jacob's eyes widen. Ori never shouts. 

He's so familiar. Ori's known him for so long, knows everything about him. Jacob has always been comforting, always been his friend when he needed one. But he was never supposed to be Ori's boyfriend, and that's on Ori. “We need to break up,” he says, and thinks he might cry. “I don't want to be together any more.”

Jacob leans against the opposite counter, the space between the stove and fridge, and looks at the floor. “Why not?” 

Ori shrugs, because he can't say it. He can't say it out loud, not the whole reason. “You keep trying to protect me.” 

“So? I've always protected you! I've always taken care of you! What else do you want from me?” He's pleading, and it hurts, somewhere deep in the cavity of Ori's chest. He's hurt him, hurt someone so much, and he's terrible, he is. “You're scaring me when you act like this. This is how your mother was, she pushed everyone away before she did it, and you're doing the same thing, you need to be on your medication -!”

“Stop treating me like a child!” There it is, the root of the problem, the one Ori couldn't acknowledge at home. He'd wanted to be treated like a child for a long time, wanted to be sheltered and have all his decisions made for him, but he'd been ill then. He's not ill now. He's not, and he isn't a child any more either. “You treat me like I'm made of glass, like I'm going to crack if I do anything you think is too dangerous! I'm not! I'm getting better! And I can make my own decisions!”

He pushes off the counter and walks out of the kitchen, needing more space. Jacob follows, asking, “Then why didn't you say something? Why didn't you talk to me?” 

“I can't ever talk to you about this, I've tried, I have, and I can't,” the words get stuck, captured by everything, by all of the hurt and unhappiness and fear. “I can't talk to you, and that's why you need to find someone else -”

“I don't want anyone else, I want to be with you,” Jacob presses, grabbing Ori by the arms so they're close and looking at one another. “I love you. I don't mind any of it. I've loved you since we were kids.”

“But we're not kids any more.” That's just how it is, and it hurts to say, hurts to think, but it is. “We're done.” He won't tell the truth. The truth will hurt Jacob beyond anything, and he doesn't deserve it. All of that was Ori's fault. He was the one who pretended, the one who lied. He hadn't understood then, had known he loved Jacob and Jacob loved him, and Jacob wanted to kiss him, so Ori should want to kiss Jacob. 

Everything had just been so wrong, and Jacob had been the only thing right. He had made everything better.

Now it's over. That part, that safe part of his life, that part has ended. He can't be a child any more. “I'm sorry.”

Jacob is still holding on to him, looking down at Ori like he's waiting for something more, something different. Something. Inside Ori's head, everything is rubbed raw and unfamiliar. It feels the same as it did that dark morning when he woke up in Fíli's bed, Fíli sprawled beside him, and it's as frightening as that morning was, just as stomach-churning. He can't believe he's doing this, that those words were his words, that he said them out loud. 

He is getting better. 

“I'm sorry you wasted all that money. I'll buy your ticket back.” He doesn't know that he can afford that, but it feels like the right thing to do. He'll have to be very frugal for awhile, and unfortunately, very dependent on Kíli for grocery money. 

“You can't afford it,” Jacob dismisses, letting him go. “Can't even afford a coat. Christ, you don't want me to treat you like a kid, but you're out without a bloody coat. You know you get sick all the time.” He swears, and says, “You need a bloody coat.”

“I know.”

“Get a damn coat.”

“I will.” 

They can't look at each other. Ori's ashamed and Jacob's so upset, and now they can't look at each other. “I thought I could come up here, convince you to change your damn mind. Or save you. Or something. But it's no good, is it?” Ori shakes his head. “Right. God, I never wanted you to come up here. If you'd just stayed close, gone to Exeter, none of this would be happening.”

Fíli's not at Exeter, but this would probably still be happening. Maybe later on, but it would. “I need to get better.” More so. He'll never be who he was. He'll never be who he was before she left him behind. 

“I made you feel better.” 

He's handsome, not like Fíli, but still fit. He'll have no trouble finding someone else. Probably already would have if Ori had never agreed to date him. They could still be friends. They're not going to be friends any more, not after this. And everyone at home will probably side with Jacob. They were always more his friends than Ori's. He's hardly received a text from any of them since he left. 

His mind takes a funny turn as he realizes he could still take it back. Jacob would forgive him and they could carry on as always. “You made me feel safe.” Always. With Jacob, he'd never worried about a thing. “I'm sorry.” 

Jacob sits on the sofa, an elbow on his knee as he rubs his mouth. He doesn't say anything, so Ori sits beside him, pulling his legs up under him, his fingers wrapping around his ankles. He needs new shoes, in the same way he needs new everything. 

“You need new shoes, too,” Jacob notes, and Ori almost laughs, leaning over so he can rest his temple against Jacob's shoulder. “I've missed you so much, you know?” 

“I've missed you too.” He's missed how easy it was with Jacob. They don't fight. They don't argue. Jacob's too easy-going, willing to concede when he thinks Ori is set on something. It's only ever been the medication. And the sex, not that Ori ever argued that point. No, he'd just lied. Lied and lied, until the lying felt like the truth. “How is everyone?”

“Fine.” He turns so they're looking at one another, his eyes tired and no particular shade of brown, but warm. Easy. “My sisters had a pool going on when you would give me the boot.”

“Your sisters are awful.”

“Yeah.” 

They stay like that for too long, the heat gone out of the confrontation for the time being. Ori sits up straight, concentrating on his fingers, how pale they look against his dark blue jeans and grey socks. He's always been pale, but he's more so now. Northern climate and all. His ankle is cold, and so are his fingers, and he wonders why that is, why he feels cold. Maybe Fíli knows. 

Right. Fíli. Should he tell? No, better not. Better not.

Jacob huffs. “I don't want this, you know. I think we can still work. We just need to talk more. Or be together more.” 

The thought of Jacob touching him makes his stomach clench. “You always think you can make everything work.”

“I always can.” That's true. He can fix anything. “Got your brother's motorbike to work, didn't I?”

He nods, unwrapping his fingers and re-wrapping them. His shoes aren't really clean enough to be up on the sofa. The sofa isn't all that clean either though. None of them are very tidy with the living room, but it isn't as though Jacob would mind. His house had always been comfortably messy, books and magazines and video games and DVDs stacked in towers on the floor or the table, dishes in the sink, and the hair from their pets hiding in corners. 

Jacob stands back up and goes into the kitchen. “Your sink is leaking.”

“Yeah,” Ori says, joining him and leaning on the door frame. “It's been doing that.”

It's like being at home. Jacob borrows some tools from their neighbour, then crawls under the sink and goes to work. He's always more comfortable if he's working on something, fixing some problem. Usually Ori's problem. “I depended on you too much,” he says, loud enough Jacob can hear him as he sits cross-legged on the tiles beside Jacob's legs. “I wasn't learning how to help myself.”

“I never minded.”

“You should have,” Ori says, following the grout lines with his finger. His mobile is flashing on the floor beside him, and he knows he should check before someone starts to worry, but he can only handle one boy at once. “You're too nice. You let people take advantage of you.” People like Ori, who had slept with someone else behind Jacob's back at first chance, and kept skirting the line with that someone else, until that day in Fíli's suite when he stepped over it entirely. “Why do you like me so much?”

“What kind of question is that?” 

“One I'm asking.” 

Jacob does something loud under the sink. “Because you're you. You're smart and fun to be around. You kick my arse at video games. You put too much sugar in your tea and you count out your change really slowly. You always forget to wear a damn coat.” He reappears, his face flushed, and pulls his shirt back down from where it's rucked up. “I don't know. I just do. Why do you like me?” 

“Because you're the best person I know,” Ori replies honestly, sad now. Why couldn't he be what Jacob needed? Why couldn't he want this wonderful boy? And they had been happy, really. There had been so many fun days spent playing _Mario Kart_ in Jacob's sitting room, Jacob accusing Ori of cheating, wrestling him down to the ground and taking the controller from him, forcing him to crash. Time in the park, throwing stones into the river, making silly, stupid wishes. 

“Then why are we breaking up?” Jacob is cleaning up the tools, and the sink isn't leaking any more. 

“Because I'm not the best person you know.”

“I don't believe that,” Jacob disagrees, coming closer, his fingers under Ori's chin. “I love you.”

It's too much. He's too much. “I cheated on you.” 

Jacob's face freezes, his fingers falling away from Ori's face. He turns, looks at the cabinets, while Ori's fingers find the groove of the grout again. “With who?”

“It doesn't matter.”

“It matters to me. With who?” He sounds like he's going to cry, and Ori wants to as well now. Why did he say that? He's so stupid. He's so very stupid. Jacob could have left satisfied if Ori had just lied, but it's all so much, it's too much to keep straight. “That flatmate of yours?” 

“No,” Ori says, shaking his head. “No, Kíli is straight, as far as I know.” He only ever tries it on with girls, at any rate. “You don't know them, so why does it matter?” 

“Because you fucking slept with someone else, and I just want to know who,” Jacob explains, his tone forceful and choked. His hands are shaking on the tiles, but he curls them into fists, and Ori hides his face, ashamed. “I want to know.”

“It's not going to fix anything.” 

“It's not about fixing anything! I just want to smash his stupid fucking teeth in!” 

“I'm the one who did something wrong,” Ori protests, “Not Fíli -”

“Fíli?” 

He's so _stupid_. He's so utterly stupid. How did that slip? That should never have slipped. Christ, he can't ever do anything right, can he? Today has been a prime example of that. Couldn't be normal for Fíli and Kíli's family, can't even break up with a boy right. “Please don't.”

“Your flatmate's brother?” It would be easier if he was still angry, if he didn't sound so hurt and betrayed. “When...damn it. That party. When you called me. You were really upset. It was then, wasn't it?” 

Ori nods. “Yeah.” 

“Were you...were you drunk?”

Again, Ori nods. Because he had been. But it hadn't been why he had done it. 

“And that's why you want to break up? Because of that?” Jacob bites his lip, huffing. “I can forgive it, you know. Eventually. Not right this minute. But I can.”

Of course he could. Jacob is the best person, the nicest one Ori knows. “I don't love you the way you love me.”

“What do you mean?” 

It occurs to Ori that maybe they should be talking about this somewhere other than the kitchen floor. Anyone can walk in. It makes it louder when his mobile buzzes again too, and before he can stop him, Jacob has picked it up. “Don't,” Ori protests, but Jacob slides it down any way. “Please.”

“It wasn't just one time, was it?” He gives the mobile back to Ori, so he can see the message from Fíli, asking him if he's all right. The rest are from others, one of the girls he and Kíli go to the pub quizzes with, another from Ori's study group. Five from Kíli, asking if Ori knows where he left his charger. 

He answers Kíli first, telling him it's in the living room. Ori just saw it on the coffee table. His study group is second, telling them he has the notes for Boccaccio. Third is cancelling on the pub quiz, with an apology. He'd forgotten all about it. 

Fíli's is last. He doesn't have an answer, so he turns off the screen and sets it aside. Only it buzzes again, showing another new message from him. Ori doesn't check it, doesn't look at Jacob either. 

“Was it more than once?” 

“The night I sent you the letter. Since then, we've been...together. I guess.” It feels like they're together. Fíli says they are. But it's hard to say in front of Jacob, impossible even. “I love you. But I don't think I'm _in_ love with you.”

“You think you're in love with him?” Jacob asks nastily, drawing his knees up, feet flat on the floor in his old work boots. “You've known him what, a month?”

“That's not what I said.” 

“You didn't have to.” 

“Don't put words in my mouth,” Ori hisses hotly, annoyed. “Even if I wasn't with him -”

“Oh, so now you're with him? Really? You really think he's serious about you?” It's hurtful, and Ori stands, trying to escape the conversation. They're just going in circles. Living room, kitchen, living room, kitchen. Break up, don't break up, I love you, I don't, I want you, I don't. You're broken, you're fine, you're ill, you're better. 

Behind him, Jacob springs to his feet, his voice raised. “So when you have a panic attack, what's he going to do? When you can't leave the flat, is he going to come see you, bring you milkshakes? When you can't speak in front of anyone, when you start crying because you can't make tea because your hands are shaking, when you can't remember how to turn the damn key in the lock, what's he going to do?” It's not a real question. “He's going to get tired of it, and he's going to screw around behind your back, he's going to make fun of you, because people like him -!”

“You don't even know him!” Ori defends, angry and frightened and hurting, because what if it's _true_?

“You don't know him either! You've known him for a month!” 

“Stop being like this!” Shouting is dangerous. Shouting makes his stomach hurt, makes his ears ring. He hates shouting, hates feeling like this, all these unhappy awful things, all those voices reminding him of how bad he can be, how much of a burden he can be. It's too much on him, too much entirely. It's all too bloody much. 

“I'm not going to stop being angry! You cheated on me! With someone you don't even bloody know!” 

Ori can't, he just can't, he's a mess, he's an absolute mess. He's shaking down to his bones now, and everything is _loud_ and _bright_ and he needs his room, he needs quiet darkness, he needs this to end, to have never happened. He needs it all to stop. Just stop. 

He snaps back to himself when a key turns in the lock, and Kíli walks in. 

“Help you?” Kíli's watching Jacob with narrowed eyes. He had to have heard the shouting. Maybe he didn't realize it was coming from their flat. “Ori, you all right?”

Why does everyone always ask him that? Doesn't he look all right? He must not. He must look a mess, must look as shattered and broken as he feels inside. Everyone must be able to see. “I'm his boyfriend,” Jacob says, and that's a lie now, one Jacob knows, because his mouth twists. 

“Funny, so is my brother,” Kíli says, moving closer. He thinks he needs to protect Ori. Ori doesn't want to be protected.

Jacob's knuckles whiten. “So he's your boyfriend,” he says, turning back to Ori. “That right? You just replaced me, like I didn't even matter -” His voice is raising again.

“No,” Ori contradicts, feeling helpless. “No, that's not what happened -” 

“Really? Because it sounds to me like you've been sleeping around behind my back -”

“Hey, get the bloody hell away from him -” Kíli yells, but Ori barely understands it, hardly comprehends what's going on around him at all. 

He closes his eyes and counts, exhales, inhales. He keeps his eyes closed, and remembers a letter that's hidden away in his little desk, remembers every word, every plea. 

She had said he was strong. Maybe she was wrong. 

But she was his mother, and mothers always know. 

“What the fuck did I just walk in on?” It's Fíli, sticking a carton of cigarettes back into his hoodie, looking between the three of them with raised eyebrows. “Kíli, please tell me you did not sleep with this bloke's girlfriend. I'm not saving your arse this time.” 

“Fíli, this is Jacob,” Ori says, and Kíli laughs, the sound oddly loud and inappropriate for the moment. He gets why it's funny. He just doesn't feel like laughing. 

He's not sure what he's expecting. Fíli strolling in and shutting the door behind him, loose-limbed and completely at ease, is somehow comforting. He's angry. Ori can see it in his shoulders, in the hard line of his mouth. So is Jacob. But they're not doing much of anything at all just yet. For all Jacob's talk, he's not violent, not as long as Ori's known him. 

Fíli glances at Ori. “This why you didn't want to come out?” 

“I didn't know he was coming.” He has every right to ask, to doubt. Nothing about this looks good. Doesn't feel good either. “He was here when I got home.” Which was ages ago, but Ori's not sure what Fíli thinks of that. “He fixed the tap.” 

Kíli looks awkward now, standing between Jacob and Ori. It's not even as though this is his fight any way. 

“Go on,” Fíli says to him. “It's fine.” 

“You sure?” He's asking them both, so Ori nods as Fíli hitches his shoulder in half of a shrug. “Right then. I'm going to go...talk to Mum, or something.” He fidgets, until Ori says,

“Your charger.”

“And that, I need that.” Kíli snatches it off the table and ducks out the door. Ori wishes he was going with him. 

There's nothing said between the three of them for what feels like forever, until finally, Fíli reaches out, cupping Ori's face and turning it towards him. “You with me?” he asks, a loaded question in itself. “Nothing I need to know about?” 

“All right, no, fuck you, you stupid git,” Jacob swears, getting Fíli's attention. “You don't get to come in here, like some White Knight, all right, no, you're the one who stole my boyfriend -”

“I didn't steal anything.” Fíli is being distant, completely dismissing Jacob, and that's not right either. He doesn't get to do that, doesn't get to treat Jacob badly just because Ori has. 

“Stop it,” Ori says, pulling away from Fíli. “Stop it, both of you. Just stop it.” He backs further away, sitting down on the couch. They're just going in circles. Ori is going in circles, trying to find an answer that doesn't actually exist. He's done wrong, and nothing will make it better. Nothing will make them better, the relationship they had. 

“You need to go home,” he says to Jacob, looking up at him. “You can't fix this.” 

Jacob kneels in front of him, and oh, it's all over. “If I told you that if you stayed away from him, and didn't see him again, didn't ever see him again at all, that I could forgive you, what would you say?”

He could still have home. This is Jacob throwing him one last lifeline, one last chance to go back to safety. To never worry. 

He looks up at Fíli. 

“I can't promise that,” Ori answers, honest, and all the better for it, as the weight he's been carrying since that party, since he and Jacob started dating, since she left him behind, since he first knew she was sick, lifts. “And I don't think you can either. So you need to go home.” He lets Jacob take his hands, squeeze them, and he lets him go when Jacob stands. 

Jacob pinches the bridge of his nose. “Get a damn coat. And some new shoes.” 

“I will.”

“You'll get sick, you know you will. You always get sick.” 

“I know.” 

Ori stands too, his arms around himself, and when Jacob kisses his temple, a hand between his shoulder blades, there's none of the trepidation that's been there for so long when Jacob touches him. “I won't tell,” he promises Ori, and he can hardly believe it. “I won't do that to you. Or me. Christ, can you imagine what my sisters would do if they knew?” 

“Be horrid,” Ori says, resting against him again. “They'd be absolutely horrid.” 

“Yeah.” 

He steps back, only looking at Ori, not Fíli. When he does turn, when he does look at Fíli, all the posturing has gone out of him. He doesn't say anything. That's not like him. He's not cruel, it's not in him. Fíli doesn't say anything either, but it's not his place right now. 

Everything feels so very done. 

After the door shuts, and it's just Fíli and Ori, Ori doesn't know what to say. The circles are done. It's just him and Fíli, and they're more like a straight line. Ori can't see where the line ends. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's very soon. But right now, when Fíli comes closer, slowly, Ori can breathe. He can slide his hands up and around Fíli's shoulders, can tilt his head up for a kiss, and he can breathe. 

“I would have hit him for you,” Fíli jokes. 

“I would have to hit you then,” Ori replies.

“Fair enough.”

♦

“No, Mum, you're forgetting the best bit -” Kíli breaks in, laughing. “No, see, after all of that, the judges come over with Fíli's ribbon, right? Because he won -”

Dís says something in Albanian, something that makes Kíli laugh harder, and Fíli shake his head good-naturedly. He's not too embarrassed, not like how Ori would be, but he does wince when Dís says, in English, “I couldn't decide whether or not I was proud of him, not until Thorin started lecturing him on punching people.”

“He said I would break my knuckles, hitting people with the wrong form like. He started teaching me to box properly then,” Fíli adds, smiling in that slow lazy way of his that makes Ori's heart flutter a little. With the sun on his face, he looks like the hero of a story, and Ori still can't believe he's a part of the same story. 

His mobile buzzes, and when he checks it, he's got a new picture of Jacob's littlest sister. She's nicked it, as far as he can tell, and keeps sending him selfies of herself in Jacob's new flat, lounging in his bed or messing with his things. Fíli sees it, and smiles down at Ori before turning back to his mother and Kíli and their attempt to shamelessly embarrass him in front of Ori. 

He's not sure Dís likes him. She speaks Albanian around him, which Fíli says is a good thing. She's friendly. 

“You know, I wanted to tell you, I think I've been to your family's café,” Dís says. “Pretty little place, lots of lavender, right?”

“That's it,” Ori confirms, proud. “Dori loves lavender.” That's not quite the point, so he says, “Our mother loved lavender.”

Saying things about her is still awful, in a way. It hurts, tears at Ori deep in his heart to share any part of her. But he needs to say it. 

Dís smiles in that understanding way Fíli does, the right side of her mouth tilting up a bit more than the left, like Kíli. “Rose and lavender tea. I remember. My sister in law loved it.” 

“So did my mother,” Ori says, smiling.

He's smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S DONE. I'M DONE. I DON'T EVEN CARE IF I DON'T LIKE IT, I'M DONE.


End file.
